An entire society sitting around debating if you are a mistake or not, all your life over and over. It never ends. No wonder homosexual youths have a higher suicide rate.

Add a few homosexuals to the mix, they can still fall in love and continue that ever vital social bonding cycle while still providing a strong back to help with the labors of the tribe — Jeremiah

Evolution becomes a useless truism if you insist upon providing explanations that support it. That is, is evolution falsifiable? Is there any occurence that disproves it?

Do sociopaths purge us of the weak and gullible? Do those born with severe handicaps teach us unconditional love and the value of life? Maybe schizophrenics teach us about the subjective quality of reality. This seems more an exercise in creativity than a scientific exercise.

People need simple answers, they like them.

In the social paradigm of majorities and minorities it is true that both face prejudice, but open of these two is swimming up stream against much faster rapids. And I think what is often overlooked by the majority is the nature of the wounds caused by repeated thrashing from the same verbal weapons over decades and the sensitivity that develops due to this abuse.

For instance, these two male black swans hooking up, building a nest, and then stealing fertile eggs from straight black swans which they then hatch and raise the chicks. Fascinating -- but is it an evolutionary advantage or just something that happens? In their case, two male swans carry a lot of social weight in the flock, and their borrowed chicks tend to do quite well. But then, everything else being equal, most swans do a pretty good job of hatching their eggs. — Bitter Crank

Homosexuality could be considered an evolutional advantage in that families that have homosexuals in them have members that are not directly implicated in the reproduction race, but who still have a stake in it, and have ressources to contribute to the other members of the family who are directly implicated.

Lets say you, as an homosexual man, have an heterosexual sister. Her genetic material is not yours, but it is about as similar as it can possibly get. If all you can do is make sure that her child is well taken care off, and she does successfully, even if you didn't, you didn't quite lose the reproduction race.

The second possibility (which is actually not exclusive to the previous one) is that homosexuality is the result of the interaction of multiple individually-advantageous genes with specific foetal conditions. There's a gene for better health, for better diction, for shinier hair, which are all great by themselves or in group, but as a group, they come with the additionnal possibility of changing your sexual orientation. Because they are still great genes to have, and because you could potentially have all of them without the orientation trigger, and because, this is important to note, homosexuals aren't sterile , whatever genes end up in their jeans, aren't really condemned to stay there.

The message was never intended for him. — Jeremiah

Ah. One could have concluded the contrary from the fact that you replied to him.

...

:roll:

They use to leave children behind when it became too much of a burden. I would assume they also left the old behind. — Jeremiah

We were hunter/gatherers for a few hundred thousand years before we invented agriculture and urbanity. How do we know that H/Gs left their children and the old behind when they became too much of a burden? What was "too much of a burden"? Do we have any evidence?

People make a lot of claims about H/Gs; some of the claims are based on modern H/G society; there are some claims that can be made on the basis of archeology. A lot of it seems purely speculative.

It is better than your black swan story.

An entire society sitting around debating if you are a mistake or not, all your life over and over. It never ends. No wonder homosexual youths have a higher suicide rate. — Jeremiah

When I was growing up gay we were considered mentally ill and worse. What one did then and what one does now is ignore as much of the negative cultural assault as one can. Later on when one is a bit more independent and secure, one can start attacking the negative notions and rejecting them.

When I was growing up gay we were considered mentally ill and worse — Bitter Crank

I was put in a mental ward for "unhealthy sexual desires". The doctors prescribed me medication that had the "beneficial side effect of reducing sex drive".

I am not as young as some may have concluded. I am not old, but neither am I young. I am middle age.

You didn't like the black swan story? It's from Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (Stonewall Inn Editions) authored by Bruce Bagemihl. Conrad Lorenz, in his Year of the Graylag Geese, also noted that there were homosexual goose couples (they didn't steal eggs, they just went through the motions).

The outstanding part of the black swan story, I thought, was stealing eggs and hatching them.

I never truly engage a bigot, but I use them.

Sorry that happened to you. I know of other such cases; and some who received lobotomies (back in the late 1940s, 50s).

No, I didn't like it. I have observed that a predilection for male intimacy can serve to deepen social bonding even between a pair of males who are not romantically engaged regardless of their individual sexual preferences. I don't like the notion that the bar for evolutionary legitimacy is entirely based in procreation, when the healthy continuation of a species depends on so much more than that aspect and I embrace the notion that homosexuals facilitate deeper social connections and create a stronger community by giving such support. A man's man and a woman's woman if you like.

I don't like the notion that the bar for evolution legitimacy is entirely based in procreation, when the healthy continuation of a species depends on so much more than that aspect and I embrace the notion that homosexuals facilitate a deeper social connects and create a stronger community by giving such support. A man's man and a woman's woman if you like. — Jeremiah

I will go to the bat for any sexual orientation that isn't based on deceipt or abuse, but I think you are patting your own back a little bit too much here. Like women who claim that there would be no wars if the politicians were all women.

I mean, you say you are homosexual, that you have lived horrible abuse and discrimination in your life because of it, but that homosexuals brings about greater social cohesion and harmony... ?

These don't follow one another.

That is because it is homophobia that is contrary to evolution.

I mean, you say you are homosexual, that you have lived horrible abuse and discrimination in your life because of it — Akanthinos

This needs to be cleared up here. I have never lived horrible abuse and discrimination due to my sexual preference. That came from the bigotry and hate of others.

There are probably a lot more gay people than people realize, and by oppressing them society is not letting them fill their evolutionary roles.

That is because it is homophobia that is contrary to evolution. — Jeremiah

:brow:

That's doing exactly the same thing as Wellwisher, just inverted.

You are pronouncing yourselves on empirical matters out of ethical concern. At the very least, the Universe's current position on homosexuality is closer to yours then to Wellwisher. But you can't tell what natural selection with select until you have an idea of the environmental pressures that are going to be in play.

That's doing exactly the same thing as Wellwisher, just inverted. — Akanthinos

That was the point. To turn the argument back onto itself.

That was the point. To turn the argument back onto itself. — Jeremiah

I corrected Wellwisher because he was clearly spouting trollish nonsense.
You are doing the same, the only difference is that you happen to be on the right side.

Doesn't mean the argument is any less faulty.

i.e : More truth, less talking-points

Bear in mind I wasn't setting these two swans up as the model of all creation to follow. They are, after all, just 2 birds. I certainly don't think that procreation is the sole arbiter of evolutionary sufficiency. A society is made up of many parts: a number of very important parts have nothing to do with reproduction.

Lets say you, as an homosexual man, have an heterosexual sister. Her genetic material is not yours, but it is about as similar as it can possibly get. If all you can do is make sure that her child is well taken care off, and she does successfully, even if you didn't, you didn't quite lose the reproduction race. — Akanthinos

Rather than looking for the hidden genetic advantage - which is always going to be a long-shot given the realities of neurodevelopment - it makes more sense to view the development of sexual identity or gender as a complex process. Genetics gets things started in a general fashion, pointing the foetus is roughly the right direction. But culture and experience play a larger role in finishing the job off than perhaps we suspect.

So we can say that it is logical that at a genetic level, the intention is to produce a binary outcome. There are males and females for a good evolutionary reason. That has all the advantages, so far as biological evolution goes.

But the construction of that differentiation - at the level of the brain's sense of gender as well as the body's development of definite sexual traits - is a complex business that can wander off line fairly easily. The sex organs can lack a typical degree of differentiation. So can the brain and the endocrine system. In the womb, there could be exposure to the "other" developmental signals at a critical time. Or even while growing up - the effect of environmental hormone-mimics.

So norms might be an average that genetics shoots for. Then it is normal that genetics only shoots for norms and so there are many ways that development might wander off towards the rival pole.

Now in animals, this kind of natural variation probably encounters little selective pushback. Animals with "homosexual tendencies" likely still end up copulating with the opposite sex and having babies in the usual way. There is not a great reproductive penalty that would cause genes and neurodevelopment to become more tightly regulated. And also, genes don't really give that level of control over behaviour anyway.

Then coming to humans, now we are talking about cultural creatures. Behaviour is especially plastic in humans due to large brains - expanded precisely because of the demands of being socially-scripted animals. Even adolescence - as a phase of post-puberty continuing brain development - is a very modern human thing. It seems to have been absent even in our hominid ancestors a million years ago.

Humans become sexually capable about four years before they become sexually active and reproducing. In the "wild", the female pelvis doesn't reach full size until about 19. That is also when birth becomes the norm. Pubertal boys likewise have to wait before they actually grow into men. They are put on hold between 13 and 18 in developmental terms, unlike any other species.

So there are big differences with humans that are biologically evolved - to support social lifestyle needs. And which also make our sexual development more complex and hence prone to the biologically "unintended" happening.

Now think of the wide variety of cultural norms that can get established - further social ideas that frame gender roles and define sexual identity - because there is this basic neurodevelopmental plasticity. There is a new kind of information that can shape the individual - the cultural imprint that follow the genetic attempt to establish a binary reproductive division of sexuality.

This doesn't make homosexuality now learnt behaviour in a strong sense. But it does mean that the human individual is growing up as a response to both an inherited biology, and an inherited culture.

In animals, my argument is that even if an individual wanders off the straight and narrow, it will likely wind up reproducing anyway. There is no cultural input to create any different idea, or introduce any further possible confusion.

But humans may be far more responsive to social cues from the youngest age. And now we get into the interesting territory of how that plays out.

For example, there has been pretty crude shift in child-rearing to gender specific environments. Every new baby comes colour coded in its clothing, nursery decoration, its toys. You are either meant to be pink or blue. So a strong dichotomy is being imposed on your identity from the moment you first opened your eyes. And that forces some kind of choice - do you now accept or reject that culturally binary identity?

Instead of leaving things to be a little ambiguous and personal, society pushes the question in your face and it has to be answered one way or the other.

And likewise, coming from the other side, there is that other aspect of modern culture where society is loud and proud that it makes no judgements about your sexual identity. That too is a judgement that is constantly present in a growing child's life - even in being a "non-judgement". Some kind of definite response seems demanded. And the logical response to that becomes an identification as gender fluid or pan-sexual.

So it ain't about right and wrong, of course. But biology did have its intentions. And to look for a hidden selective advantage in homosexuality or gender confusion is a stretch.

And then humans are by design more neurodevelopmentally plastic, more designed to be developmentally completed by cultural programming, anyway. Natural selection has been at work at the level of social norms for a long time with Homo sap.

And now we get into the ways that culture forces the issues. It logically seeks binaries or dialectical divisions. And so every individual becomes forced to interpret his or her own feelings in terms of gender norms. Human culture has evolved to a point now where being non-binary is itself a binary issue of great social importance to how you understand yourself as an individual.

Didn't homosexuality use to be simpler just a few generations back? You were queer and so spoke and walked a certain way. The choice was just straight or gay. Although where homosexuals could construct communities, then they started to impose their own further binaries to create a variety of sub-types. You could have butch vs fem, and so on. As much variety as you please - so long as there was the wider homosexual community to supply and support these contrasting modes of expression.

So the mechanics of it are complex. And also, still socially evolving. The human capacity for gender fluidity - under the right social conditions - is probably far greater than anyone would believe. But also there is the issue that if you are born with one set of sex organs and cultural factors leave you confused about how to interpret that, is that a happy state of affairs for all concerned. Is there a price to that kind of social liberalism - just as we can ask about liberalism generally when it robs individuals of the identity-stabilising context they in fact often seek.

So there are philosophical questions to make both the liberal and conservative uncomfortable. Does either understand the nature of gender sufficiently to be able to arrive at sound social policy?

(And yes, I realise that political identity is another of those binaries that society likes to impose upon us as confused and unformed individuals. :) )

Doesn't mean the argument is any less faulty. — Akanthinos

Well, I do also have the benefit of personal experience being gay in our society, and I have also spent an incredible amount of time studying and discussing the nature of homosexuality, with many people, both professional and not.

So there are philosophical questions to make both the liberal and conservative uncomfortable. Does either understand the nature of gender sufficiently to be able to arrive at sound social policy? — apokrisis

Ah, Apokrisis strikes again, in all his wordiness!

I mean, I know this sounds ridiculously dickish, but I really have the impression you have said nothing in those 16 paragraphs that you couldn't have said just as clearly in 16 sentences. :kiss:

Although I quite agree with the quoted part. I have always warned liberal-minded folk when they argued that homosexuality was a genetic condition and not a mental one, that this somehow did not mean that bigots would all of a sudden relent from their bigotry.

I mean, I know this sounds ridiculously dickish... — Akanthinos

So why did you say it? If you are so smart that you could boil it down into fewer words, great. But I think what you meant was that you are unaccustomed to any demand being made on your attention span.

(Which would be about the size of Twitter. Again we see how culture is shaping neurodevelopment right there in a way everyone is now quite familiar with.)

Yes, because Nicolas Boileau is renowned for saying "What is well thought-out can be well enunciated, and should fit in 140 characters or less, #voltairesucks".

You can be so cute when you are all puffed-up. Wait, does that make me gay?

Oh, right, according to Jerimiah we can't ever be sure. :chin:

One of us is a paid professional writer. Is that what makes you so butt-hurt?

Well, how could I possibly have known that before?

And please, 'butthurt'? In this thread? I would have expected that of Hanover, but not you, oh Great Professional Writer! :broken:

Although Hanover would have at least owned it, and added more flourish.