On the causes of sexual orientation

But, Nosy, your fecundity function, as it is linked to homosexuality, can only cause a greater disproportionality in reproductive success amongst individuals of a population, which is precisely what NS is all about.”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

The definition of Darwinian natural selection is: differential reproductive success amongst individuals across a population. Wouldn't you suppose that homosexuality could affect that?”HM

Nosy, anything that affects the reproductive success of individuals in a population will invite NS. That is true because NS is precisely defined as differential reproductive success of individuals across a population.A population experiences no NS if it comprises no differential reproductive success amongst its individuals. But if some members of a population fail to engage in successful reproduction, that means that THERE IS differential reproductive success amongst its individuals. Therefore, they contribute to the NS process by failing to reproduce.”HM

BeagleBob, just checking on one point here. You know that there is a difference between fecundity and NS. Fundity is a measure of a female's ability to make babies. It is not a measure of NS itself. NS happens when the fecundity of females is differentially distributed across a population. Thus, when some females become more fecund than others their population undergoes natural selection. The study cited by Nosy does not address differential fecundity, which is tantamount to NS.”HM

Nosy, from your cited article in Message 41:

quote:

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These findings provide new insights into male homosexuality in humans. In particular, they promote a focus shift in which homosexuality should not be viewed as a detrimental trait (due to the reduced male fecundity it entails), but, rather, should be considered within the wider evolutionary framework of a characteristic with gender-specific benefits, and which promotes female fecundity. This may well be the evolutionary origin of this genetic trait in human beings.
The possible widespread occurrence of sexually antagonistic characteristics in evolutionary processes, which play their evolutionary game by giving a fecundity benefit to one sex while disadvantaging the other, has only recently begun to be appreciated. This is understood as a key mechanism through which high levels of genetic variation are maintained in biological populations.

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You're right and I'm wrong on that score (highlighted in yellow). But I was pursuing a different point”one that makes a population more likely to evolve via NS, thereby affecting its genomic stasis, if it takes on homosexuality.Remember my fifth WHEREAS in the opening post: "WHEREAS; Homosexual orientation did not evolve to facilitate a population’s dynamic equilibrium or its struggle against Darwinian natural selection; in fact, it may be a mechanism that suppresses a population’s ability to resist NS." I think your article partly supports this assertion. A population can be provoked into NS by homosexuality, because it may raise genetic variation too high.As for the red conclusion: Why wouldn't higher levels of genetic variation maintained by a population be as much of a bad thing for its stasis than a good thing? I agree that some genetic variation is important to a population's stasis, but too much of it be could be corruptive. A middle ground might be that homosexuality evolved as governing mechanism for maintaining healthy genetic variation.From this article I can see better how homosexuals might help to maintain a healthy level of genetic variation in a population, if I understand the proposed mechanism. Is this the empirical evidence I've been looking for that supports a theory that homosexuals naturally play a positive role in the human population? Or is it evidence that they could tilt us on our ear?”HM

It's more likely that I misunderstood. But the question remains: How, in terms of NS, do 'gay genes' work? Do they work in favor of NS? Or do they work for the stasis of a population?”HM

Well, yes, it is related. But fecundity is not precisely the issue here; it's the distribution of fecundity in a population ” its differential distribution ”that is what NS is all about. Again, NS is defined as 'differential reproductive success amongst individuals across a population.' Fecundity is only a measure of production, not a measure differential production.”HM

What interests me most is that way off in the fruit-fly genomes a kind of fruit-fly homosexuality occurs, and obviously without the flies getting to choose their own sexual orientation. In a queer way, this stuff is beginning to sink in. We need to learn more about this homo mechanism.”HM

Nosy, the way I feel about this sexual orientation issue can be likened to the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is the attempt by gays to get everybody in the room to avoid seeing this elephant for what it really is. What it really is is not the same thing as what the black issue, for example, really is ” it's not like any racial thing at all. What it is is a blatant act of The Emperor's New Clothes.Isn't it really silly to say that what causes heterosexuality also causes homosexuality? Pardon me for spotting that elephant standing over there by the closet, but doesn't he look a just little out of place?I still think homosexuality is an aberration, even if it is a natural aberration. And I don't really believe anymore that it has to be a bad aberration, even if that was how I was taught by my football teammates in the locker room. Perhaps it is some kind of a positive mechanism to a population; obviously, it doesn't seem to go away via NS. I'm glad to have read your posted article. But I do wonder if increasing gayness truly represents a good thing for the human population. Maybe it's nature's way of telling us we're in serious trouble.*”HM*On the principle of my fifth WHEREAS in Message 1.

I'm sure that's how the Picts felt about the Viking raiders. Would you prefer "sexual mutant"?”HM

The silliest question on this thread is "What causes heterosexuality?" That's like asking What causes testicles? The only thing I know of that causes my heterosexuality is the testosterone surging through my system. And for some odd reason I have gotten the notion that this is the way it's supposed to be. I no longer see women because they are too much trouble for me in my 70th year of life. One learns this from experience, even if one still ogles women at the grocery store. But never once did I have a yearning to ogle men instead of women. To this day it still seems like an aberration to me, although I haven't any experience being gay. Being gay means to me that something is askew. If it is askew for good biological reasons” say population control ” then that helps me to understand it. But it's still a deviation from the norm. It seems like an aberration to me because it invites NS, according the my fifth WHEREAS in the OP.Besides, the only pressing issue that concerns me about gays is their demands for state-sanctioned, same-sex marriages. That's where the aberration part comes in. "Same-sex marriage" is an oxymoron, like "one hand clapping."”HM

Are you saying that if my mother had put pink booties on my feet instead of blue ones I might have turned gay?”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

No, it's not. Let little pink booties be a metaphor for what science doesn't know about the causes of homosexuality. Homosexuals don't even know what causes them to be homosexual. Genes? Developmental? Nutrition? Population conditions? Kooties? Nobody seems to know what causes such a deviation from normal sexuality, which is heterosexuality. I can show you evidence in support of this. I'm saying I don't know anything about what causes homosexuality. And I am also saying I do know what causes my heterosexuality, at least I think I do. Honestly, it feels quite nature being a heterosexual man who loves women. It also feels good to my genes, which are selfishly counting on me to use my masculine equipment on a woman in an effort to pass them on to my children. But my genes would be mightily frustrated in this regard if I tried to pass them on to another man, which I never do.”HM

No, I don't. Well, maybe my brain is wired heterosexuality, too, but I think it got that way from instructions on my Y chromosome, and from the hormones they informed. Makes me wonder what happened to gay men's Y chromosomes. Maybe its a font issue ” lower case. Was he forced? I knew he was gay, but he was crazy smart, too, like so many geniuses. Maybe he was predisposed to suicide.”HM

Nosey & Taz, given what you say, then:1. Explain to me precisely what causes homosexual orientation. That would settle the argument once and for all.2. When choice of sexual orientation becomes a therapeutic option, do you suppose the flux of conversion will flow from hetero to homo or the other way around?3. Is choosing to be Catholic the same thing as choosing to be gay? (Because that is what you're implying when you invoke the religion/Constitution principle to support your same-sex/Constitution argument.)”HM