How did homosexuality evolve?

[dimreepr]

19 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Is that a comment on me, or on zoos, or people who talk to dolphins?

you, the others are a bonus.  

not forgetting the op. 

[Polinski]

On 3/14/2019 at 12:37 PM, Itoero said:

How did homosexuality evolve?

It's present in other animals as well.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

It did not and there is no homosexual gene since it has a zero chance of replicating.  However if you are Elton John you can buy a kid and pretend

[Ken Fabian]

28 minutes ago, Polinski said:

...there is no homosexual gene since it has a zero chance of replicating.

Yet lots of homosexual people - identifying as gay - do have children. Some may find it impossible to have hetero sex but I think the majority find, perhaps using some imagination, that they can want to have children and can perform the required act. No homosexual gene, perhaps, but they still have a lot more than zero chance of replicating and even if there were a 'gay' gene unless it has a much more reliable effect that prevents hetero sex it is not going to be selected out of the gene pool, and either way homosexuality will persist.

I can envisage circumstances where there are a shortage of available mates - alpha males laying claim to multiple women for example is likely to have been commonplace. Outlets for sexual urges in such circumstance, that are not socially disruptive - avoiding fights and injuries - aid the reproductive success rate of the whole group, and more so when they are useful contributors to group survival. In 'selfish gene' style, the childless will share most of their genes with most of the group; aiding their nieces and nephews and cousins along the way will ensure the genes they share will continue.

 

Edited June 20, 2019 by Ken Fabian

[Strange]

4 hours ago, Polinski said:

It did not and there is no homosexual gene since it has a zero chance of replicating.  

Even if there is a heritable element of sexuality, it does not mean that "there is a gene for it". That is a hopelessly naive view of how genetics works. (Do you think there is a "gene for heterosexuality"?)

Also, homosexuality doesn't make people sterile so your second point is equally silly.

[Polinski]

3 hours ago, Strange said:

Even if there is a heritable element of sexuality, it does not mean that "there is a gene for it". That is a hopelessly naive view of how genetics works. (Do you think there is a "gene for heterosexuality"?)

Also, homosexuality doesn't make people sterile so your second point is equally silly.

Lol so now you know that dna does not use genes to code.

You need to publish this

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, Polinski said:

Lol so now you know that dna does not use genes to code.

And that's a silly straw man.

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Polinski said:

Lol so now you know that dna does not use genes to code.

That is not what I said.

(But, in fact, genes use DNA. Not the other way round.)

[dimreepr]

9 hours ago, Polinski said:

It did not and there is no homosexual gene since it has a zero chance of replicating. 

I had a school "friend" who married a woman who was equally homophobic, their third son was as gay as the day is long and VERY proud of it; I pissed myself, mostly because he changed (well, not him really) their minds.

[swansont]

12 hours ago, Polinski said:

It did not and there is no homosexual gene since it has a zero chance of replicating.  However if you are Elton John you can buy a kid and pretend

!

Moderator Note

Please leave Sir Elton out of the discussion. It's one thing to be uninformed about science, but another thing to disparage someone.

 

[Polinski]

21 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

Yet lots of homosexual people - identifying as gay - do have children. Some may find it impossible to have hetero sex but I think the majority find, perhaps using some imagination, that they can want to have children and can perform the required act. No homosexual gene, perhaps, but they still have a lot more than zero chance of replicating and even if there were a 'gay' gene unless it has a much more reliable effect that prevents hetero sex it is not going to be selected out of the gene pool, and either way homosexuality will persist.

I can envisage circumstances where there are a shortage of available mates - alpha males laying claim to multiple women for example is likely to have been commonplace. Outlets for sexual urges in such circumstance, that are not socially disruptive - avoiding fights and injuries - aid the reproductive success rate of the whole group, and more so when they are useful contributors to group survival. In 'selfish gene' style, the childless will share most of their genes with most of the group; aiding their nieces and nephews and cousins along the way will ensure the genes they share will continue.

 

If dna has a purpose, it is to reproduce itself.  That said from a genetic standpoint homosexuality is like a bank running ads that this bank leaves their vault doors open.  All the money is stolen and the bank goes extinct.

 

There are also zero children produced by homosexuality.

 

[zapatos]

15 minutes ago, Polinski said:

There are also zero children produced by homosexuality.

There are also zero children produced by heterosexuality.

Children are produced by the fertilization of an egg. Doesn't matter if the egg or sperm came from a homosexual or a heterosexual.

 

20 minutes ago, Polinski said:

That said from a genetic standpoint homosexuality is like a bank running ads that this bank leaves their vault doors open.  All the money is stolen and the bank goes extinct.

I was unaware that being homosexual stopped people from wanting and/or having children.

 

22 minutes ago, Polinski said:

All the money is stolen and the bank goes extinct.

And yet we are not going extinct. Lousy analogy.

[Polinski]

3 minutes ago, zapatos said:

There are also zero children produced by heterosexuality.

Children are produced by the fertilization of an egg. Doesn't matter if the egg or sperm came from a homosexual or a heterosexual.

 

What I said is correct and not in dispute.  I said that there are no children produced by homosexuality.  I did not say that no homosexuals have children.  Your statement however is wrong, because heterosexuality is the desire that brings the male sperm and female egg together.  

2 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Who did he bid against?

All the other couples that were looking to adopt

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, Polinski said:

All the other couples that were looking to adopt

All of them?!?! He bid against millions of people?!?! How does this auction work?

16 minutes ago, Polinski said:

heterosexuality is the desire that brings the male sperm and female egg together.  

Homosexuals don't desire to bring the sperm and egg together in order to have a child?

Edited June 21, 2019 by zapatos

[Polinski]

16 minutes ago, zapatos said:

All of them?!?! He bid against millions of people?!?! How does this auction 

https://www.google.com/search?q=elton+john+david+furnish+baby&client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us&prmd=niv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7w5fZufniAhVDVd8KHf3ACNIQ_AUoAnoECA8QAg&biw=412&bih=718&dpr=2.63#imgrc=BjF5UImczzQ4yM

That is who this child brings to school on parent teacher night, that is if they ever bothered to attend.

Again the buying and selling of children is wrong, as is mothering for hire, but that is just my opinion.  I have two children, had both of them the boring old fashioned way

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Polinski

[zapatos]

1 minute ago, Polinski said:

 

Again the buying and selling of children is wrong, as is mothering for hire, but that is just my opinion.

 

So my wife and I were wrong to hire a surrogate when we were unable to conceive? Why?

8 minutes ago, Polinski said:

That is who this child brings to school on parent teacher night, that is if they ever bothered to attend.

How many parent/teacher nights have they missed?

[Polinski]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

So my wife and I were wrong to hire a surrogate when we were unable to conceive? Why?

Just my opinion, sorry that your wife could not concieve.  My wife and I also went to a fertility clinic and everything failed.  However once the doctor said to stop the drugs my wife concieved naturally twice.  

[zapatos]

13 minutes ago, Polinski said:

Just my opinion

But why? What is the basis of your opinion? What was wrong about it?

[Polinski]

11 minutes ago, zapatos said:

But why? What is the basis of your opinion? What was wrong about it?

Because selling children is wrong, just like abortion is wrong.  My opinion does not need your approval.

Is it legal, apparently but it is also legal for a woman to abort any child the day before birth, including a contract baby

Edited June 21, 2019 by Polinski

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

Stick to the topic, and quit the straw man arguments, Polinski. This isn’t about abortion, nor is it about selling children. Please try and approach your posts with a little more scientific rigour while you’re at it.

 

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

Do not copy paste entire articles. If you wish to make a point using them, quote relevant sections and cite where you got them from. 

Also, mod notes are not open for conversation within the thread. If you have a problem with one, report it or PM staff.

 

[Endy0816]

Can still have the desire to continue your lineage.

Historically, based on literary sources, I think men and women merely resigned themselves for the purposes of procreation. Primitive means of introducing sperm could have worked about as well too though.

Who you love is a separate matter than the physical act.

Eventually I expect it will all be much more high tech without the need for surrogates, donors and outside genetic material.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Endy0816

[John Cuthber]

Just a thought...

I think we all accept that it's ludicrously simplistic to say there's a "gay gene" - it's a combination of genetic and environmental factors but, for simplicity, we can use "gay gene" as a shorthand.

So, it's clear that a strict "gay gene" would be a problem for evolution.

 

But what's the story for a gene for " being  sexually attracted to women"? Equally, how about the gene for "being sexually attracted to men"?

Well, those genes are strongly selected for in some  (fairly obvious) circumstances.
Men with the first of those genes will be much more successful reproductively than men without it.

And women will be more successful if they have the second gene.

 

Now, as I said, that's not really going to be a single gene, but a combination. And it's likely that the individual genetic components of the trait will be repeated- people will have more than one copy of some of the genes responsible. It's also reasonable to imagine the genes involved being activated or deactivated by testosterone or oestrogen 

And it's plausible that those genes may be distributed throughout the genome.

 

So, genetic shuffling of genes will give rise to various combinations of the "fancies women" and "fancies men" components in all people.

Some combinations of those components will lead to homosexuality even though the genes themselves are not related to the "homo".

A "fancies men" gene is homosexual in males, but heterosexual in females.
You don't need any "gay gene", so there's no need to worry about how it's carried through the generations.

[zedrexvsyrex]

On 3/14/2019 at 12:17 PM, StringJunky said:

Evolutionarily, If you take one breeder out of the breeding equation you can use them to assist in the upbringing of their siblings offspring, which can significantly improve the survival of the group. That group will carry the genes of the gay individual, and so the gay gene perpetuates.

I disagree. I believe that there is no evolutionary basis for homosexuality.

If it really were because of 'assisting in the survival of offspring', then polygyny would be the predominant form of relationship/sexuality, as women have much greater maternal instincts than males do. And as such, heterosexual polygynous relationships would be favored over homosexuality. 

Homosexuality is explained by increased social pressure, as we know from John B. Calhoun's rodent experiments (specifically Mouse Universe). It caused the "behavioral sink" which in turn led to extinction in every test, retest, and variation of said tests and retests. 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, zedrexvsyrex said:

I disagree. I believe that there is no evolutionary basis for homosexuality.

If there is no evolutionary basis, then what? It was created by god?

1 hour ago, zedrexvsyrex said:

If it really were because of 'assisting in the survival of offspring', then polygyny would be the predominant form of relationship/sexuality, as women have much greater maternal instincts than males do. And as such, heterosexual polygynous relationships would be favored over homosexuality. 

Something being favoured (even if your hypothesis/guess were correct) does not make something universal. And something else being less favoured does not disappear. 

1 hour ago, zedrexvsyrex said:

Homosexuality is explained by increased social pressure, as we know from John B. Calhoun's rodent experiments

1. Humans are not mice

2. Even if social pressure could create homosexual behaviour in humans (implausible) that is not the explanation for all homosexuality. That would be like saying that people get violent when drunk, therefore all violence is due to drink.

[zedrexvsyrex]

13 minutes ago, Strange said:

If there is no evolutionary basis, then what? It was created by god?

I believe that sexuality is the link between nature and nurture. Sex is biological due to obvious reasons, but is also social too. In other words, there are biological attributes driving attraction, but also social attributes as well. And since social attributes are a product more so of nurturement/upbringing, I believe that one can be socialized into changing their sexuality. Evidence of this is seen in how sexuality can change over the course of someone's life. Another example (albeit, very taboo) is bestiality. Bestiality involves socializing animals to be sexually attracted to humans; animals have much lower cognitions along with much higher impulses than humans too. I'd imagine that there could be a similar mechanism in humans, especially considering that we're the only species to engage in anal sex.

13 minutes ago, Strange said:

Something being favoured (even if your hypothesis/guess were correct) does not make something universal. And something else being less favoured does not disappear. 

Genetic drift + natural selection.

16 minutes ago, Strange said:

1. Humans are not mice

2. Even if social pressure could create homosexual behaviour in humans (implausible) that is not the explanation for all homosexuality. That would be like saying that people get violent when drunk, therefore all violence is due to drink.

We use mice for a reason. They exhibit similar social systems that we humans do. And while it may not explain all, it may account for a significant amount. Interestingly, the rise of social media coincided with the rise of sexual deviancy (sexual deviancy being defined in this case as non-heterosexual and/or cross-species sexual intercourse), which very well could be increasing social pressure.