Darwin's theory

PopePalpatine

Nodin wrote: »

I have a theory, and that theory states that you don't actually believe in creationism at all, at all.

By any chance is this Poe's Law? :pac:

tigger123

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

Some pretty much have (see crocodiles) but most haven't. Part of the problem with being human is that we tend to see things on a very, very short time-frame and tend to have difficulty grasping ideas that have a scope of hundreds of years, let alone thousands to millions of years.

You're right about the timescales involved, but evolution can be seen in real time too. The arms race between antibiotics and diseases is an example of evolution as diseases adapt to their surroundings and prosper. It's very early, maybe someone can explain it more clearly.

bnt

stmol32 wrote: »

That's a really good point.
Also if it's survival of the fittest how come there's fat people?

As long as you survive long enough to procreate, that's what defines "fittest", what happens afterwards doesn't matter. Hence all those diseases of old age, against which there is no "evolutionary pressure". Get old and fat, lose all your hair and teeth, drop dead of a heart attack at 45 - it's irrelevant as long as the kids survive to do it all again. :cool:

floggg

GreeBo wrote: »

Ants come from a single queen, so a queen that has both gay and straight offspring could benefit her give.


The problem seems to be your interpretation of "more people would become gay"
You have decide it means people switching from straight to gay. Since this is a thread about evolution, I assumed you would understand that "more people" means more of the population over time, offspring, children, yunno evolution.
My mistake, I'll dumb it down next time, for the less evolved amongst us.

GreeBo wrote: »

Nope.
If, as I said, homosexuality is a persistent and pervasive trait then eventually everyone is gay and you dont get any offspring to rear.

GreeBo wrote: »

Well you are now assuming that a hay man and a gay woman have sex, which kinda goes against being gay.

In evolutionary/biological viewpoint they are not "gay".

I'm not saying that they would be gay because both their parents are gay, Im saying "if homosexuality was a persistent/pervasive trait" then it would eventually happen. If being gay was a benefit then more and more people would become gay. If its not a benefit then, as the original poster said, it can be viewed as a disorder. Its not a benefit to the individual organism so it will die out.

To be honest either way if interpreting your "become" gay comment is kinda dumb.

If your argument was that if homosexuality was to be seen as some evolutionary genetic advantage, eventually the entire species would go gay and die off, then its your thinking and understanding of the subject is just cripplingly underdeveloped.

Obviously that wouldn't happen because homosexuals themselves would be much less likely to occur procreate. So of homosexuality is genetic, it's never going to be a dominant generic trait in the species.

Anybody putting that forward as a hypothesis is just dumb, and neither understand evolution, homosexuality or reproduction. And anybody who thinks it's the only way geneticly derived homosexuality is compatible with evolution is equally dumb.

if you ever watched the discovery channel or even just looked at an ant colony you'd realise that lots of animals thrive by being social and taking a collective approach to food harvesting and child rearing.

A large percentheir of weaver birds for example never have their own offspring, but instead help raise their siblings. Clearly there has been an evolutionary advantage for weaver birds in some members of the family not reproducing and there must be some mechanism whereby their desire to do so is suppressed. This is most likely a genetic trait.

I don't think there's any question that humans do better when acting collectively rather than individually - particularly the significant length of time it takes humans to reach maturity.

It really shouldn't take much for you to realise that there would be an advantagthin our hunter gatherer days for a family where one or more members did not wihunte have offspring of their own and instead dedicated their time and resources to helping the family as a whole. That would free up other members for either child minding or food gathering roles.

So if you take a somewhat broader view of human nature and reproduction it's really not hard to see how there would be an evolutionary advantage to having some (but not all) members of your family being homosexual.

but it looks like you already dumbed things down even without me.


Edit- from subsequent posts it seems your thinking is somewhat better developed than I thought, so "dumb" may have been harsh (though I was responding in kind).

Still think your thinking is underdeveloped though - just not as much as I had thought.

folan

in conclusion, Darwin is the roy.

Roy keane none too happy

Akrasia

FobleAsNuck wrote: »

what if homosexuality is the nature's way of limiting the population?

Nature doesn't intend to limit populations. populations limit each other through predation, competition for resources and reproduction and diseases. in times of plenty, populations surge, in times of disease/famine/disaster/loss of habitat, populations decline. This is a tautology because the only meaningful definition of 'plenty' is a situation where there are more than enough resources than required for survival.

human population trends are not typical of nature, because we have foresight and the ability to use technology to keep people alive who would not survive if the natural course of things were to unfold.

GreeBo

FobleAsNuck wrote: »

what if homosexuality is the nature's way of limiting the population?

I think normally the environment does that, you cant consume what isnt there, so you move somewhere else or you have less people, not by choice (unless you are China) but because you physically cannot support them.

floggg

GreeBo wrote: »

Because how does a population pass on "some" people are gay for the good of the population? A hive with a single queen could as queens who have some gay offspring would likely have an offspring who also had some gay offspring, all assuming it's a trait that can be passed on.

Things survive between generations because it's useful, more of those with the useful trait survive.
I don't see how some being gay can be passed on?

Btw I don't see why the attitude is required, feel free to post without it.

Let's say a family of primitive humans had a gay member, and assumed that his homosexuality was genegic. He is the only homosexual in the family, so Instead of leaving the group to find a mate, he stayed and helps his parents and siblings raise their offspring, increasing their chances of surviving and competing for food etc.

He didn't pass on any genes himself, but the genetic ingredients which may have caused his homosexuality are still present to varying degrees in his siblings, and capable of activating in future generations.

Indeed there is some statistical evidence to show that women with gay siblings tend to have more babies - which may well be due to the fact that havthat's large family wasn't as risky or demanding where there were non-reproducing family members available to assist them.

floggg

GreeBo wrote: »

Because how can unrelated births pass on being gay to some offspring?

How do two blonde parents have a ginger child?

Honestly, go look up a first year biology book before you start trying to argue genetics and evolution.

fryup

let philamena cunk explain....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKPXPlaHBEk

Akrasia

Barely There wrote: »

The homosexual gene is passed on by the woman, not the man.
That's why it hasn't been 'evolved out' of the gene pool.

The vast majority of women have bisexual tendencies - any perusal of the popular porn websites will demonstrate this.

There isn't one single 'homosexual gene'. There are probably many genes involved as well as epigenetic factors to do with gene expression during pre-natal development and early childhood years (which would explain why not all identical teins share the same sexual preference)

folan

floggg wrote: »

How do two blonde parents have a ginger child?

one of em is cheating

marieholmfan

lanomist wrote: »

just a question, If Darwins theory on evolution, that humankind evolved from apes, why are there still apes out there ?

Humans are apes who together with all other apes evolved from common ancestors.

GreeBo

floggg wrote: »

How do two blonde parents have a ginger child?

Honestly, go look up a first year biology book before you start trying to argue genetics and evolution.

Because they are the parents of the child and one of them has a recessive gene.

I don't think that's the same issue as an extended family or a community having "some" gay people for the benefit of the community.

Also, whats the benefit of being blonde? The argument here is whether or not being gay is beneficial from an evolutionary point of view.


/edit
Honestly, just try to have a good, honest debate without getting all flouncey, it really doesnt endear your point. Especially when you dont explain what it is you are attacking.

floggg

GreeBo wrote: »

It happens, but from a biological- evolutionary point of view being a nun isn't a dead end, but being gay is. Having only gay kids is too.

I don't think you can compare a choice (nun) with something you inherited (gay), then nun doesn't come into it from an evolutionary point of view.

I also don't think it's that rare, historically huge numbers of children didn't reach reproductive age due to many environmental factors, I'm not convinced that having a gay child who definitely won't continue the bloodline outweighs the benefits of possibly having an extra protector.

There are lots of genetic lines which have and will die out for a variety of reasons (including genetic ones). That doesn't mean certain genes within those lines don't survive.

Genes aren't sentient beings. They dont do anything with any great purpose in mind. So if they combine in some instances in less advantageous combinations, then that carrier may well die.

It doesn't mean the genes will - they will be carried by others in their genetic line and appear in other combinations.

Your problem is that you think there has to be am intended purpose or intelligence to the whole thing. It doesn't.

If a gene can be mostly advantageous, it is likely to survive even if in certain circumstances it can manifest itself in less advantageous ways.

Akrasia

floggg wrote: »

How do two blonde parents have a ginger child?

Honestly, go look up a first year biology book before you start trying to argue genetics and evolution.

Pat Mustard was a ginger before he went grey. Question answered

Roger Hassenforder

GreeBo wrote: »

Also, whats the benefit of being blonde? The argument here is whether or not being gay is beneficial from an evolutionary point of view.

Melanin, the more of it you have the darker you would generally are.

Generally people with light skin, blond hair, blue eyes in hot/sunny climates are more at risk of skin cancer, cataracts and lower folic acid, so would not have been able to compete as effectivly as those who were dark skinned, brown eyed, and so left fewer children. However, in northern lattitudes this is not a problem.

Here, people with dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes in these lattitudes cannot produce VitaminD as effectively as their lighter neighbours, with bone structure and muscle performance suffering. So they left fewer children.

So where it was sunny, if you had dark skin, hair eyes etc., it would be fitter. Where it wasnt so sunny, this would be a disadvantage. Those with lighter skin, hair would be regarded as fitter.

Note. depending on your sexual preferance however, you may regard those with darker skin, brown eyes, latina type as "fitter"

GreeBo wrote: »

Honestly, just try to have a good, honest debate without getting all flouncey, it really doesnt endear your point.

Hear hear.

floggg

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

You are putting your emotions into this and attempting to use logic to find your way around, also the fact that you have a homosexual brother makes your argument very biased.
Science is the judge between us and so far it's on my side as i explained in my previous post.

Also people choose a lot of stuff in their life that their parents/friends may not agree with so this argument is very flawed, atheism for example do you understand how difficult it would be for a atheist to come out to his strongly practising catholic family and tell them he's an atheists? am sure many in this position will suffer anxiety and depression over it and yet again atheism is a choice and not something you are born with but simply strongly believe in similarly the case with the homosexual .

Anybody who says it's a choir for gay people must also believe it's a choice for straight people.

Now I know most straight people will say it's no choice - their genitals are only wired to respond to the opposite sex. And most gay people will say their genitals are only wired to respond to the same sex.

If you believe it to be a choice though, that's tells me your genitals must be wired to respond to both but you choose to pursue one or the other. How else would you have any choice about it.

If that's the case, then congratulations - your bisexual. Hurray for you.

folan

floggg wrote: »

Anybody who says it's a choir for gay people must also believe it's a choice for straight people.

theres no choir for the straights?

I am horrified!

floggg

GreeBo wrote: »

I appreciate that, I just don't see the advantage to having gay children at this time.
I can see in the past where a mother having many male children where more and more of them are gay could be useful.
But can you give a modern example of where it's useful?

I think it's more likely to be a result of something else that is typically beneficial, a side effect or that it's an excess of something that's beneficial in smaller "amounts".

Like a strong jaw is attractive, but desperate Dan is too far.

We didn't evolve at this time though. We evolved then.

Genes aren't sentient - they don't know when they are no longer needed. And modern times are quite new, so there hasn't really been much time for evolution to catch up to the extraordinary technological and societal progress we have made.

We are now in a position out think evolutionary mechanics. We know favour lots of other factors that just genes.

E.g. A lottery winner will like get more sexual and romantic attention than they would otherwise. His unearned money, rather than his genes, would determine who he sleeps with and potentially has kids with in many instances.

So his genes may get passed whether evolution likes it or not.

floggg

GreeBo wrote: »

Because they are the parents of the child and one of them has a recessive gene.

I don't think that's the same issue as an extended family or a community having "some" gay people for the benefit of the community.

Also, whats the benefit of being blonde? The argument here is whether or not being gay is beneficial from an evolutionary point of view.


/edit
Honestly, just try to have a good, honest debate without getting all flouncey, it really doesnt endear your point. Especially when you dont explain what it is you are attacking.

Says the guy who said he needed to dumb things down for me.

And it explains it pretty well I think. If a ginger gene can be carried by blonde people, a gay gene could be passed on by straight people.

Genes don't do things with any intent. A particular gene might result in an advantage. Those who carry out will do better through the accident of their genetics. There's no intent or design but it happened. So they will reproduce more and pass it on - even if not all members procreate.

So a gene doesn't chose to come to a dead end in a gay person. It just happens that way. But as long as it exists in others who reproduce it will be passed on,- nd their offspring will benefit in turn.

iDave

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

yet again atheism is a choice and not something you are born .

Everyone is born atheist.

GreeBo

floggg wrote: »

Your problem is that you think there has to be am intended purpose or intelligence to the whole thing. It doesn't.

Sorry but I dont think that at all.
Simply, a gene/trait that helps an organism to survive will, logically, survive more than one that doesnt help the organism to survive and thus procreate.

The question was raised regarding why does homosexuality survive when, logically, it doesnt help an organism to survive and procreate since that organism doesnt procreate.

I honestly dont understand where you are getting the opinion that I think there needs to be an intelligence behind it. As you (should) well know, thats not how evolution according to Darwin works.

gladrags

floggg wrote: »

We didn't evolve at this time though. We evolved then.

Genes aren't sentient - they don't know when they are no longer needed. And modern times are quite new, so there hasn't really been much time for evolution to catch up to the extraordinary technological and societal progress we have made.

We are now in a position out think evolutionary mechanics. We know favour lots of other factors that just genes.

E.g. A lottery winner will like get more sexual and romantic attention than they would otherwise. His unearned money, rather than his genes, would determine who he sleeps with and potentially has kids with in many instances.

So his genes may get passed whether evolution likes it or not.

The lottery winner may get lucky.

But, is this still not chance ?

For example, meeting someone accidently at an event.

The bottom line is the genes are passed on.

The lottery winner has found a way.

Cianmcliam

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

You're looking at things purely on the level on a single organism though. If a gene is having an overall neutral or positive effect on a population, it's going to survive. There's no reason for it not to.

Genes cannot get into the next generation by 'blending in with the crowd' individuals carrying this gene have to successfully reproduce or the gene dies off.

Now if, as the claim seems to be, that being straight or gay became an evolutionarily stable strategy (ie. Being one or the other has no advantages or disadvantages since gay people do often reproduce) then you would have to expect homosexuality to become much more common, like different eye colours that have no effect on reproduction. This hasn't happened so there must be an evolutionary pressure against it, and given the hundreds of thousands of generations you would expect this pressure, even if slight, to reduce the carriers of the gene to the point where they are completely replaced in the population.

GreeBo

floggg wrote: »

We didn't evolve at this time though. We evolved then.

I was under the impression that we are still evolving.

floggg wrote: »

Genes aren't sentient - they don't know when they are no longer needed. And modern times are quite new, so there hasn't really been much time for evolution to catch up to the extraordinary technological and societal progress we have made.

We are now in a position out think evolutionary mechanics. We know favour lots of other factors that just genes.

E.g. A lottery winner will like get more sexual and romantic attention than they would otherwise. His unearned money, rather than his genes, would determine who he sleeps with and potentially has kids with in many instances.

So his genes may get passed whether evolution likes it or not.

But unless his genes are somehow predisposed to keep winning the lottery that blip is insignificant over a couple of generations. Sure some other traits that are beneficial to procreation could be passed along, but if they are beneficial they will be passed along anyway.

floggg wrote: »

Says the guy who said he needed to dumb things down for me.

Apologies, I was clearly getting rather frustrated at your constant personal attack on a well formed opinion that differs from your own.

floggg wrote: »

And it explains it pretty well I think. If a ginger gene can be carried by blonde people, a gay gene could be passed on by straight people.

Genes don't do things with any intent. A particular gene might result in an advantage. Those who carry out will do better through the accident of their genetics. There's no intent or design but it happened. So they will reproduce more and pass it on - even if not all members procreate.

So a gene doesn't chose to come to a dead end in a gay person. It just happens that way. But as long as it exists in others who reproduce it will be passed on,- nd their offspring will benefit in turn.

I think you are missing the fundamental point between a gene(s) that causes blonde hair and one that that precludes reproduction.
If blondes were less likely to have children then you might have a point.
The gay gene can be passed on but only but only by those that are not impacted by the gene, it has to be dormant in them.

Again, I'm not saying that a gene chooses anything or has intent.
If the gene causes the organism to survive and procreate more than those without that gene then that gene survives more than some other gene that doesn't have those benefits.

The gene(s) that cause homosexuality, in my opinion, cant be seen to be beneficial for procreation due to the fact that the result of being gay is that you, the gay organism, doesnt procreate when viewed from a macro level.

GreeBo

gladrags wrote: »

The lottery winner may get lucky.

But, is this still not chance ?

For example, meeting someone accidently at an event.

The bottom line is the genes are passed on.

The lottery winner has found a way.

There is no lottery winning gene, so the point is flawed.
When the money runs out the benefit to being a lottery winner runs out.
The money isnt passed on via genes to the offspring, if the money is all spent before the children procreate then it hasnt helped, from a long-term, evolutionary sense.

GreeBo

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

You're looking at things purely on the level on a single organism though. If a gene is having an overall neutral or positive effect on a population, it's going to survive. There's no reason for it not to.

Only because its that individual that either has kids or doesnt.
I'm not convinced on the hive benefit for non hive organisms.
So comparing humans to ants only makes sense if human populations come from a single mother who can pass on beneficial traits in an ad-hoc "some are gay" way.

GreeBo

Akrasia wrote: »

What do you mean by modern?

For at least 10,000 years human reporduction has been driven by many factors more than just sexual selection. The reasons why people have children are complex and vary by culture and nation. For example, in cultures with arranged marriages, feeling attracted to your mate isn't a requirement for reproduction. Being sexually attractive may not be as big a factor in the number of children you have, as the amount of money or political power you have, (for example) or the religious attitudes you hold towards contraception and/or the family and the role of women.

Going forward, being gay may not be a major barrier to having children. In societies that are repressive towards gay people, men and women will still hide their sexual preferences and have heterosexual marriages regardless of theuir sexual preference. In progressive societies, Gay women can already get pregnant via invitro fertilisation, gay men can use surrogates if they choose, a choice that might become more common as gay marriage becomes normalised and more married men feel the urge to have their own family. People of any sexual preference can sire multiple children by donating eggs or sperm etc

I think 10,000 years is modern from an evolutionary point of view.

Again, sure nowadays gay people can have children, but they are doing so outside of natural evolutionary means. In these cases being gay wasnt a benefit to reproduction, it was actually a barrier.

Knasher

GreeBo wrote: »

The question was raised regarding why does homosexuality survive when, logically, it doesnt help an organism to survive and procreate since that organism doesnt procreate.

The point I keep coming back to though, is that statement is only logical if there is a gene that codes for homosexuality and homosexuality alone. That is unlikely to be the case however, for the very reason you are pointing out.