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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5521 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
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Author | Topic: On the causes of sexual orientation | ||||||||||||||||||||
BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: This same reasoning might be used for peacock feathers. (An apt analogy given how fabulous homosexuals can be). In all seriousness, the answer is a complicated one. It's almost certainly the case that homosexuality has a strong biological component. However, how much of that role is genetic, epigenetic, or developmental isn't entirely known. In any case, homosexuality is observed across many, many species, from penguins to elephants to dogs to chimps. Thus, there must be something either beneficial or selectively neutral about homosexuality for it to persist. In wolves, mounting behavior between males is done to establish a dominance hierarchy. The same is true for rabbits, though humping behaviors persist even after neutering and is done by both genders. In bonobo chimps, lesbianism helps ease the stresses of inter-population migration. This last observation would seem to be a distinct positive effect.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: Well, at the very least it provides reasoning for my choice of names. I do know of several reports where animals have engaged in pure same-sex relationships at the exclusion of opposite-sex relationships (such as the zoo penguins that had romanced each other and were even given a fake egg to tend to). There were news reports a few years ago of sheep engaging in homosexual activities, ignoring the opposite sex. In fact, this phenomenon was so significant that scientists did studies of sheep brains on this.
The wikipedia article has plenty of examples in which homosexuality appears to be a social activity rather than one of simple horny rutting. I'm afraid I don't have access to the university network, so I can't provide any primary sources. However, if you do find some papers you're interested, give me a link and I can download them for your perusal next week. Now I've gotta go. There's a pillow in the corner there that's looking mighty attractive right now.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: The same might be said of altruism and kin selection, though. Such behaviors are detrimental to the individual's fitness, but they improve the fitness of the population as a whole. As we've seen with species like the bonobos, there definitely seems to be a societal benefit to their lesbianism. I recently learned of another hypothesis though, whereby homosexuality may be an X-linked trait that causes a behavioral change in women who have it, increasing their motivation to mate with other men. Males who have this chromosome and turn out gay might just be a side-effect.
There's a book here. It looks interesting but I haven't read it. EDIT:
quote: Ah there we go. This'll make some frat boys happy, for sure. Edited by BeagleBob, : No reason given.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: "Abberations" as you put it still are the result of some sort of causal phenomenon, which are often very complex. Heterosexuality in the crude sense certainly isn't Y-chromosome-dictated... after all, women are heterosexual. Neither is attraction to men (again, women). It's a specious hypothesis at best. As much as I'd like to address topic, "why should homosexuals have access to heterosexual institutions?", the matter is a moral question, not a scientific one. If you're interested in this problem, it may be best to start a new thread.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
EDIT: Whoops, already posted.
Edited by BeagleBob, : No reason given.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: It's a conspiracy from homosexuals to push their Gay Agenda and erode the traditional nuclear family of one man, one woman, and hundreds of eggs.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: Absolutely. And this study has shown that homosexuality has a positive effect on reproductive fitness which counterbalances the negative one. In women, the "gay gene" appears to enhance reproduction, while in men the "gay gene" will reduce reproduction. Just as Nosy said, the analogy to the SCA gene is an apt one. Sure, a good mix of this gene in a population is going to be fatal for some individuals, but across the board it's still going to result in improved reproductive fitness. It's important to remember that populations evolve, not individuals. Some dudes not fathering children isn't going to affect the women in the population from getting pregnant and giving birth to highly fecund females and gay males. Edited by BeagleBob, : No reason given.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: Please tell me you aren't saying that fecundity is unrelated to natural selection. If GirlA has twice as many children as GirlB, she's spreading her genes more effectively.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: Well hello there. In all fairness, it could be said that blond hair and blue eyes are also "abberations." After all, they are the result of rare, defective genes that eliminate the ability to produce pigment in the cells of the eye and hair follicles. "Aberration" is a strong word for something that is just a rare mutation distinct from a wild-type.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: Christ, you're 70 years old? Don't you recall how in the 1950s homosexuality was "treated" with hormone supplements that didn't work at all? How can you maintain that "testosterone" is an adequate answer to the issue of the biological difference between homo and heterosexuality? Hell, Alan Turing, one of the greatest minds of your generation, committed suicide because he was forced to take hormones that made him sterile and obese.
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BeagleBob Member (Idle past 5698 days) Posts: 81 Joined: |
quote: It was the 50s. Of course he was forced. He pulled a Snow White and ate an apple injected with cyanide.
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