Homosexuality and 'Usefullness'

[fls]

That depends on at what point you trace it as an accident. If it is a fundamental flaw in binary sexual reproduction, then the advantages of having two sexes outweigh the harm of homosexuality on the species.

Yes.

What is the benefit of having the nerves attach in front of our retina or being unable to generate our own vitamin C? By the logic that things must present a benefit to last, then these must be beneficial.

That a thing is present suggests that it is not sufficiently harmful or that it is sufficiently beneficial to persist. I think nerves attaching in front of the retina is sufficiently beneficial, and being unable to generate our own vitamin C is not sufficiently harmful. It may also be that whatever prevents us from generating our own vitamin C is connected to something that is beneficial. If it looks to some people like homosexuality is sufficiently harmful, then its persistence suggests that it may be sufficiently beneficial in some way. But, of course, the answer could just be that it is neither.

This is very much like arguments for intelligent design in some ways, both are based around flawed views of perfection. Evolution is about the least bad not the perfect.

I agree.

Linda

 

[ponderingturtle]

That a thing is present suggests that it is not sufficiently harmful or that it is sufficiently beneficial to persist. I think nerves attaching in front of the retina is sufficiently beneficial, and being unable to generate our own vitamin C is not sufficiently harmful.

Well at the time it was easily corrected by diet so losing it had no effect. Kind of like until the domestication of animals there would be no benefit to being able to digest milk as an adult.

I am wondering why you would suggest that the retina thing is helpful instead of insufficiently harmful?

It may also be that whatever prevents us from generating our own vitamin C is connected to something that is beneficial. If it looks to some people like homosexuality is sufficiently harmful, then its persistence suggests that it may be sufficiently beneficial in some way. But, of course, the answer could just be that it is neither.

Possible but most primates eat enough fruit and such that it would not matter much if they could generate vitamin c because they have a diet with enough in it.

But in general you would agree that homosexuality does not need to possess an evolutionary advantage to not be present? It just needs to be an insufficient disadvantage. Which it certainly seems to be on the species level.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

But in general you would agree that homosexuality does not need to possess an evolutionary advantage to not be present? It just needs to be an insufficient disadvantage. Which it certainly seems to be on the species level.

I think you have to be very explicit and state what criteria you are using when you decide that some characteristic which has survived evolution is an advantage, a disadvantage, or neutral. For example, is bisexuality an advantage, a disadvantage or neither?

 

[Beerina]

Since homosexuality is fairly ubiquitous (and not just in humans), the rational conclusion would be that it is useful.

It wouldn't even have to be useful in an evolutionary sense. Perhaps one of the benefits of intelligence (if you can call it that) was the development of social pressures to keep people with homosexual tendencies reproducing. They may have always snuck stuff on the side, but still had their wives and husbands and kids.

The development of a sexually open and free society is really just within the past generation or so. In any case, legion, still, are the homosexuals who come out of the closet later in life, even to themselves, having already reproduced.

E.g. Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, et al.

I think presuming there must have been a valid (i.e. evolutionary) reason for homosexuality to develop may be missing the bigger picture that, for all human history but the very recent, they were functionally heterosexual "enough". The organism may have been gay, but the slightly larger organism that is gay biology + social pressure, functionally was not. Evolution doesn't care why you reproduce, only that you do. Gay biology (for no reason, or genetic drift, or god knows what) + social pressure is just fine with it.

Discussions about this are, unfortunately, hopelessly entangled with the politics, that, wrongly IMO, seems to demand people be "born this way" in order to justify their actions. That is technically irrelevant. In a properly defined society, The People never grant the government the authority to regulate adult sexuality. Hence questions like these are of purely academic interest.

 

[Upchurch]

That is because they don't understand the term reproductive success. Siblings share as much genetic material with each other as they do their parents, in some cases more. If a sibling helps rear another sibling they are helping their genes to get passed on. This is why so many birds have juvenile rearing of siblings. So if you have a sibling, you don't reproduce and you rear your neices and nephews, there is still benefit to your genes.

I have a friend who is working on her doctorate in Evolutionary Psychology. Apparently there is a hypothesis in the field very close to what you describe here.

Going from my very faulty memory, homosexuality serves at least two evolutionary functions. First, since it only appears in sufficiently large populations for the environment in which the population is contained, homosexuality helps curb overpopulation without the use of destructive forces like disease. In other words, homosexuals contribute to the productivity of the species without increasing its size.

The second is somewhat related and is pretty much what you mentioned. The resources a gay sibling generates over their lifetime is contributed back to the other siblings' kids. It represents a concentration of resources, rather than a further dilution, to the next generation making their success much more likely.

Again, I probably butchered the argument as it is not my field and I heard this second hand, but it always made sense to me.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think you have to be very explicit and state what criteria you are using when you decide that some characteristic which has survived evolution is an advantage, a disadvantage, or neutral. For example, is bisexuality an advantage, a disadvantage or neither?

That would all depend on the expression. Is having more offspring per pregnancy an evolutionary advantage, disadvantage or neutral? All three seems likely to be true.

 

[Loss Leader]

For example, is bisexuality an advantage, a disadvantage or neither?

It depends on the bisexual and her tolerance for being filmed, I guess.

 

[fls]

Well at the time it was easily corrected by diet so losing it had no effect. Kind of like until the domestication of animals there would be no benefit to being able to digest milk as an adult.

I am wondering why you would suggest that the retina thing is helpful instead of insufficiently harmful?

More helpful than not having a retina.

Possible but most primates eat enough fruit and such that it would not matter much if they could generate vitamin c because they have a diet with enough in it.

But in general you would agree that homosexuality does not need to possess an evolutionary advantage to not be present? It just needs to be an insufficient disadvantage. Which it certainly seems to be on the species level.

I agree that it does not need to. But I wouldn't start with that assumption - not just merely to be obstinate )), but also because it is potentially more instructive.

Linda

 

[ponderingturtle]

More helpful than not having a retina.

But more helpful than not having a blindspot like squids and such?

I agree that it does not need to. But I wouldn't start with that assumption - not just merely to be obstinate )), but also because it is potentially more instructive.

Linda

Oh it could be interesting to look for genetic evidence of how the ability to generate vitamin c was lost. But the enviromental factors that interacted with this would be at the least almost pure speculation.

 

[Smiledriver]

I think the useless arguement is made up by someone who doesn't expose themselves to theology much. Papal letters argue that the natural end of human sexual relations (God's will) is child birth. Homosexual willfully disregard this natual end. Instead the end becomes simply sexual gratification, which reduces a homosexual's partner as a means to a selfish end, someone without interests of their own. Which is sinful.

People who are infertal, from disease or old age do not willfully disregard this end, nor do children and so forth.

Priests and Nuns do not engage in sexual relation of any kind and so they do not disregard God's will, quite the opposite they surrender all things all things in their life to God's service.

 

[fls]

It wouldn't even have to be useful in an evolutionary sense. Perhaps one of the benefits of intelligence (if you can call it that) was the development of social pressures to keep people with homosexual tendencies reproducing. They may have always snuck stuff on the side, but still had their wives and husbands and kids.

The development of a sexually open and free society is really just within the past generation or so. In any case, legion, still, are the homosexuals who come out of the closet later in life, even to themselves, having already reproduced.

E.g. Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, et al.

I think presuming there must have been a valid (i.e. evolutionary) reason for homosexuality to develop may be missing the bigger picture that, for all human history but the very recent, they were functionally heterosexual "enough". The organism may have been gay, but the slightly larger organism that is gay biology + social pressure, functionally was not. Evolution doesn't care why you reproduce, only that you do. Gay biology (for no reason, or genetic drift, or god knows what) + social pressure is just fine with it.

I agree. I just think that starting with the assumption that it's okay to be useless misses half the picture, and is a less useful approach. I forgot that "evolution=perfect" was one of the irritating ways in which evolution is misunderstood and didn't think to make it clear that that was not what I was saying.

Discussions about this are, unfortunately, hopelessly entangled with the politics, that, wrongly IMO, seems to demand people be "born this way" in order to justify their actions. That is technically irrelevant. In a properly defined society, The People never grant the government the authority to regulate adult sexuality. Hence questions like these are of purely academic interest.

Yes.

Linda

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

I think the useless arguement is made up by someone who doesn't expose themselves to theology much. Papal letters argue that the natural end of human sexual relations (God's will) is child birth. Homosexual willfully disregard this natual end. Instead the end becomes simply sexual gratification, which reduces a homosexual's partner as a means to a selfish end, someone without interests of their own. Which is sinful.

Though I have no doubt that many acts of homosexual (and heterosexual, for that matter) intercourse are undertaken without regard for the partner's interests, do you honestly believe that no homosexual cares about his or her partner's gratification as well?

People who are infertal, from disease or old age do not willfully disregard this end...

They do if they continue to have sex in full knowledge that they will not reproduce.

The argument that homosexuality is wrong because it is useless can only be consistently made by someone who holds that any sexual act that cannot lead to childbirth is wrong: oral sex, frottage, masturbation, skull****ing, sex with the infertile, sex with use of birth control.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think the useless arguement is made up by someone who doesn't expose themselves to theology much. Papal letters argue that the natural end of human sexual relations (God's will) is child birth. Homosexual willfully disregard this natual end. Instead the end becomes simply sexual gratification, which reduces a homosexual's partner as a means to a selfish end, someone without interests of their own. Which is sinful.

People who are infertal, from disease or old age do not willfully disregard this end, nor do children and so forth.

Priests and Nuns do not engage in sexual relation of any kind and so they do not disregard God's will, quite the opposite they surrender all things all things in their life to God's service.

I am trying to understand how children being the "natural end of human sexual relations" leads to the idea that someone can have sex after say a hysterectomy and be OK provided it is with a spouse and still use that argument.

 

[fls]

But more helpful than not having a blindspot like squids and such?

I think it would also be reasonable to consider it from the perspective that a blind spot is not sufficiently harmful. Is that what you were looking for?

Linda

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think it would also be reasonable to consider it from the perspective that a blind spot is not sufficiently harmful. Is that what you were looking for?

Linda

Basically. It seemed that you were advocating the false impression that living animals are remarkably well adapted/designed.

All in all arguing about such hypothetical uses or benefits of such traits with out serious methods of testing such hypotheses seems like so much mental masturbation, and physical masturbation is so much more fun.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I get to link this again!

Just because an organism doesn't directly reproduce their genes, if their behavior improves the reproductive fitness of their siblings and other close relatives, their genes will be passed on, indirectly. Beyond the genetic issue of improving the fitness of your siblings and other close relatives, simply particpating in society and making a contribution improves everyone's fitness. A police officer, fire fighter, school teacher, doctor, or any other person can signficiantly improve the fitness of the rest of us. I dare say Norman Borlaug has done a great deal in prove the fitness of all of us.

There's sound genetic reasons for the persistence of homosexuality.

 

[Cainkane1]

Gays and lesbians can and do make babies. My girlfriends older sister is gay and she she got pregnant and had a baby by a straight A blond haired and blued eyes Georgia Tech student Football player. She picked him to be the father because of his good genes.

 

[fls]

Basically. It seemed that you were advocating the false impression that living animals are remarkably well adapted/designed.

You may be interested in this book.

All in all arguing about such hypothetical uses or benefits of such traits with out serious methods of testing such hypotheses seems like so much mental masturbation, and physical masturbation is so much more fun.

Ah, but the pleasure is so relatively brief.

Linda

 

[ponderingturtle]

I get to link this again!

Just because an organism doesn't directly reproduce their genes, if their behavior improves the reproductive fitness of their siblings and other close relatives, their genes will be passed on, indirectly. Beyond the genetic issue of improving the fitness of your siblings and other close relatives, simply particpating in society and making a contribution improves everyone's fitness. A police officer, fire fighter, school teacher, doctor, or any other person can signficiantly improve the fitness of the rest of us. I dare say Norman Borlaug has done a great deal in prove the fitness of all of us.

There's sound genetic reasons for the persistence of homosexuality.

Except there is a total lack of evidence to show that this is the case, and why would that be the case in say penquins? I have not heard of Gay Penguin Uncles helping provide for chicks in the sea ice.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Except there is a total lack of evidence to show that this is the case, and why would that be the case in say penquins? I have not heard of Gay Penguin Uncles helping provide for chicks in the sea ice.

Pardon, but studies do show that altruism, via kin selection, may indeed be part of the cause of the retention of the genetic factors of homosexuality.

The last one requires a subscription, sorry.