Study:Homosexuality associated genes: surprising advantages for homosexuals' family ?

[bluedawg12]

If you have ever wondered how homosexuality might be passed on genetically as historically we gays did not reproduce in as high a number as straights, if at all.

Yet here we are, gay men and women and we persist! :fistbump:

Here’s a look at some research on the topic about gay men. Now they need to do some studies about WASOTSI women!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=20080420-000003&page=1

Finding the Switch
Homosexuality may persist because the associated genes convey surprising advantages on homosexuals' family members.

By: Robert Kunzig

If there is one thing that has always seemed obvious about homosexuality, it's that it just doesn't make sense. Evolution favors traits that aid reproduction, and being gay clearly doesn't do that. The existence of homosexuality amounts to a profound evolutionary mystery, since failing to pass on your genes means that your genetic fitness is a resounding zero. "Homosexuality is effectively like sterilization," says psychobiologist Qazi Rahman of Queen Mary College in London. "You'd think evolution would get rid of it." Yet as far as historians can tell, homosexuality has always been with us. So the question remains: If it's such a disadvantage in the evolutionary rat race, why was it not selected into oblivion millennia ago?

Twentieth-century psychiatry had an answer for this Darwinian paradox: Homosexuality was not a biological trait at all but a psychological defect. It was a mistake, one that was always being created anew, in each generation, by bad parenting.

<snip>
It turns out that parents of gay men are no better or worse than those of heterosexuals. And homosexual behavior is common in the animal kingdom, as well—among sheep, for instance. It arises naturally and does not seem to be a matter of aloof rams or overbearing ewes.

<snip>

More is known about homosexuality in men than in women, whose sexuality appears more fluid. The consensus now is that people are "born gay," as the title of a recent book by Rahman and British psychologist Glenn Wilson puts it. But for decades, researchers have sought to identify the mechanism that makes a person gay.

<snip>

But we know gayness is not entirely genetic, because in pairs of identical twins, it's often the case that one is gay and the other is not. Studies suggest there is a genetic basis for homosexuality in only 50 percent of gay men.

<snip>

No one has yet identified a particular gay gene, but Brian Mustanski, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is examining a gene that helps time the release of testosterone from the testes of a male fetus. Testosterone masculinizes the fetal genitalia—and presumably also the brain. Without it, the fetus stays female. It may be that the brains of gay men don't feel the full effects of testosterone at the right time during fetal development, and so are insufficiently masculinized.

But if that gene does prove to be a gay gene, it's unlikely to be the only one. Whatever brain structures are responsible for sexual orientation must emerge from a complex chain of molecular events, one that can be disrupted at many links. Gay genes could be genes for hormones, enzymes that modify hormones, or receptors on the surface of brain cells that bind to those hormones. A mutation in any one of those genes might make a person gay.

<snip>

By interfering with the masculinization of the brain, gay genes might promote feminine behavior traits, making men who carry them kinder, gentler, more nurturing—"less aggressive and psychopathic than the typical male," as Rahman and Wilson put it. Such men may be more likely to help raise children rather than kill them—or each other—and as a result, women may be more likely to choose them as mates.

<snip>

Camperio and his colleagues compared the family trees of gay men to those of straight men, and confirmed that homosexuals had more gay male relatives on their mother's side than on their father's side—which suggests an X-linked trait. But the Italian researchers also found something more intriguing: Compared with the straight men, the gay men had more relatives, period.

<snip>

Camperio recalls. "I explained to her that we found out that homosexuals come from large families. I told her that there is an inheritance from the mother—she's giving the homosexual genes to her son. I said, 'This is impossible—how can they be surviving?'"

His daughter, 15, replied, "But Dad, did you check if this factor that makes sons homosexual is not the same factor that makes the mother produce more children and have big families?"

<snip>

For every older brother a man has, his chances of being gay go up by around a third. In other words, if you have two older brothers, you're nearly twice as likely to be gay—regardless of whether the older brothers are themselves gay. It is not possible to explain that as an effect of genetics.


<snip>

But in another study, Bogaert found that it was only biological older brothers that contributed to the effect. Men who grew up with older stepbrothers or adopted brothers—brothers born of different wombs—were no more likely to become gay...
In other words, the effect could not be explained through upbringing.

<snip>

Most recently, Bogaert, Blanchard, and their colleagues have found that older brothers increase the likelihood of homosexuality only in men who are right-handed—even though left-handed men are more likely to be gay in general. "We don't really know what that means," says Bogaert.

<snip>

So how do the pieces fit together? So far, they don't. Rather, they exist side by side. "There is no all-inclusive explanation for the variation in sexual orientation, at least none supported by actual evidence," says geneticist Alan Sanders of Northwestern University. It's one of the most consistent themes to emerge from the literature on homosexuality: the idea that there are many different mechanisms, not a single one, for producing homosexuality.

<snip>

The biggest gap in the science of homosexuality concerns lesbians: Much less research has been done on them than on men. That's because women's sexuality seems to be more complicated and fluid—women are much more likely to report fantasizing about both sexes, or to change how they report their sexual orientation over time—which makes it harder to study. "Maybe we're measuring sexual orientation totally wrong in women," says Mustanski. Rahman and Wilson suggest that lesbianism might result from "masculinizing" genes that, when not present to excess, make a woman a more aggressively protective and thus successful mother—just as feminizing genes might make a man a more caring father.

Right now, there is no one all-inclusive solution to the Darwinian mystery of why homosexuality survives, and no grand unified theory of how it arises in a given individual. Homosexuality seems to arise as a result of various perturbations in the flow from genes to hormones to brains to behavior—as the common end point of multiple biological paths, all of which seem to survive as side effects of various traits that help heterosexuals pass along their genes.

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. It's so simple. Gay people have The Gay Agenda working for them

Straight people are generally boring. See here...

http://cronus.com/agenda

:)

[whoneedstickets]

2. Yeah, typical males are psychopathic....

..calling BS on that one.

[bluedawg12]

3. Yeah, that seems harsh, doesn't it?

>> And that, as Rahman and Wilson and other researchers have suggested, is one solution to the Darwinian paradox: Gay genes might survive because so long as a man doesn't have enough of them to make him gay, they increase the reproductive success of the woman he mates with.

...less aggressive and psychopathic than the typical male," as Rahman and Wilson put it. Such men may be more likely to help raise children rather than kill them—or each other—and as a result, women may be more likely to choose them as mates.

In this way, over thousands of generations of sexual selection, feminizing genes may have spread through the male population. When the number of such genes exceeds a certain threshold in a man, they may flip the switch and make him want to have sex with other men. Evolutionarily speaking, that is bad for him. But for the women who are doing the selecting, the loss of a small number of potential mates may be a small price to pay for creating a much larger number of the kind of men they want.

<<

I assumed that they were referring to primitive times and the traits that would be selected "over thousands of generations of sexual selection."

[donco6]

12. That's not what it said.

The study posited that gay men were less LIKELY to be psychopathic (how much? .000005%? On an evolutionary scale, that's all it would take). And it's just a guess anyway.

[Creideiki]

4. The real flaw in the argument

"But we know gayness is not entirely genetic, because in pairs of identical twins, it's often the case that one is gay and the other is not. Studies suggest there is a genetic basis for homosexuality in only 50 percent of gay men. "

Most genes do not express 100% of the time. Some rarely express, and we have people simply carrying the gene along to deliver further down the line. Among the few that do express 100% of the time, many of those do not become active until later in life (like the gene for Parkinson's). So there still can be a genetic basis, just not constant activation.

[bluedawg12]

5. Excellent point about gene activation.

I think it will turn out that when it comes to behavior, which is, physiologically speaking, linked in large part to hormone mediation, that there will be a combination of several genes that will in total result in a "likely" behavior.

I say "likely" because we do have the power to suppress urges. NOT that this is something I advocate as healthy.

Along those lines,for example, in this study one thing they did not mention in relationship to gay men and the transmission of genetic traits, is how many men, or women, in history were forced to accept the dominant society's constraints against gay relationships and DID get married and reproduce? There is no way to go back and study that question.

Also, as more gay's are having biological children, I wonder how that would affect the gene pool? I guess, unless it were in really large numbers, not much implication for the population in general, but following gay family genetic lines would be interesting.

I do know that gay parents, or parenting by gays, does not lead to gay kids. Again, multiple genes would explain that.

In addition to hormones, I wondered about the role of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and seratonin, I haven't looked into any studies about that.

The most interesting thing about this article is that being able to produce gay off spring may confer an evolutionary advantage to heterosexuals. I used to think it was just a natural way to keep population numbers stable.

Gosh, we gays are fascinating. :fistbump:

[mondo joe]

6. Also, the line between genetic and environment is sometimes blurry.

If the birth mother is predisposed, genetically, to chemically modify the uterus (let's say) in such a way that is more likely to produce gay sons... what do we call that?

[bluedawg12]

7. According to this article - a good adaptation that favors

the birth of sons who have attributes that are nurturing, only when it reaches some crictical tipping point, flipping that "switch," does it become homosexual behavior as such.

These are just theories, but, at least they propose a positive reason for the persistence of natural selection towards gay male offspring.

[mondo joe]

8. I think there pretty much has to be a positive adaptation. Or we wouldn't be here.

:-)

[bluedawg12]

10. Exactly! I thought the asnwer would be either

population control or to decrease competition for reproduction and to decrease group stress. This article sheds an interesting new light.

You know, as a species, we humans are a relatively brand new experiment.

[mondo joe]

11. There's also kin selection.

In kin selection, the presence of related non-reproducers gives an advantage to kin, who share some DNA.

Many species benefit from kin selection - most obviously, bees.

I never bought the population control idea because I never thought it made sense - our percentage seems pretty consistent regardless of population density.

[bluedawg12]

17. Co-operative efforts rather than competition?

I wonder about the stats regarding homosexuality - how many people are/were reluctant to admit to a pollster?

Still, if 2-5% of the population consistently take themselves out of competition for reporductive mates and also tend not to reproduce, that is a safety valve of sorts.

Just saw a study from {u]Norway about lesbians, over the last 20 years the number of lesbians having children did not go up.

http://www.ejhs.org/volume11/giertsen.htm

>>Motherhood
The hypothesis of more lesbian women having children in 2005, compared with 1986, was not confirmed. Around 8–9% of respondents at both time points reported having given birth. Thus, we did not identify a historical shift in the structuring of the lives of lesbian women in terms of having children. For those who had children, we did not ask whether the children were a result of an earlier heterosexual relationship. There might be differences between the samples in this regard. However, because of the relatively small proportion of participants who had children, we believe that the differences between the samples concerning giving birth in a heterosexual setting vs. a lesbian setting may not be large. Statistics Norway (2002) came to a similar conclusion based on an analysis of men and women who registered as partners after the Act of Registered Partnership was implemented in 1993. They claimed that Norwegian media’s notion of a lesbian baby boom was false. Based on this, and our own analyses, it seems that the reported US lesbian baby boom (e.g., Patterson, 1994) has not occurred among organized lesbian women in Norway...

Secondly, many lesbian women today and in earlier times construct their lifestyle in a certain opposition to mainstream heterosexual life, and this might be a stable factor across the two time periods. For many lesbian women, it is neither an ambition to resemble heterosexuals nor to accomplish the same relationship gains, such as having children. Thus, political lesbianism might be a stable factor across time periods (1980s to 2000s). <<

[mondo joe]

20. Kin selection is still a competetive edge. It just benefits kin.

Consider two hunter-gatherer families, with three daughters and 1 son each.

In Family A the son is homosexual, and in Family B the son is heterosexual. In this scenario, all the kids have 3 offspring each except the homosexual son who has none. (Let's set aside for the moment that he COULD reproduce - he's just less likely to do so.)

So Family B has the numeric reproductive edge. But Family A may be better off - more productive adults but fewer kids to provide for can easily translate into being more competitive. There's more food to go around, more adults to provide protection.

Imagine lean times - the kind in which kids die of hunger. Which kids will likely fare better - those in Family A or those in Family B? If your answer is A, the the homosexual son's genes are being passed on indirectly through his nieces and nephews.

[bluedawg12]

24. Co-operation with-in the group gives competative edge

outside of the group.

Same might be said of lesbians? Co-operative nurturing?

In the animal kingdom we see females caring co-operatively for the young in that group, even when they are not their own.

[mondo joe]

25. Not just any group, but the genetically related group.

Lionesses in a pack are typically sisters, sharing genes. The success of one is the success of all.

Female bees almost never reproduce, but their genes succeed in the offspring of their near relatives.

Lots of ways for genes to succeed other than direct reproduction.

[bluedawg12]

31. Great discussion! Here's a bit on: The co-operative gene theory:

http://www.complexsystems.org/publications/coopgene.html

>>Beginning with the very origins of life, it is the common denominator in all of the various formal hypotheses about the earliest steps in the evolutionary process -- from Eigen and Schuster's (1977, 1979) "hypercycle", to King's (1986) "chemical symbiosis" model, to Szathmáry and Demeter's (1987) "stochastic corrector" to Wächtershäuser's (1988, 1990) "surface metabolism" model, to Kauffman's (1993) "collective phase transitions." All share the common assumption that co-operative interactions among various component "parts" played a central role in catalyzing living systems.

At the level of the genome, it goes without saying that genes do not act alone, even when major single-gene effects are involved. As Dawkins observed in one of the less frequently quoted but more important passages of The Selfish Gene, the genes are not really free and independent agents: "They collaborate and interact in inextricably complex ways, both with each other and with their external environment...Building a leg is a multi-gene co-operative enterprise" (1989<1976>:37). To underscore this point, Dawkins employed a metaphor from rowing: "One oarsman on his own cannot win the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. He needs eight colleagues...Rowing the boat is a co-operative venture" (p.38). Furthermore, Dawkins noted: "One of the qualities of a good oarsman is teamwork, the ability to fit in and co-operate with the rest of the crew"

...Douglas H.Boucher (1985), in an edited volume on mutualism, pointed out that there is a long-standing debate among ecologists over the relative importance of competition and co-operation in nature, which can be traced back at least to the 1920s. He noted the remarkable fact that, despite a general bias over the years in favor of competition as the "basic organizing principle" of nature and a concomitant preference among theoretical ecologists for using the famed Lotka-Volterra competition model in their analyses, in fact a co-operative version of the model (involving a simple sign change) has been reinvented (evidently independently) at least 29 times since 1935. Boucher's volume reflected yet another of the periodic renewals of interest in the co-operative aspect of ecology (see also May 1982).

Charles Darwin was also well aware of the importance of co-operation in nature. In the final recapitulation of his epochal work, he penned the following, oft-quoted passage:

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed in many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have been produced by laws acting around us (1968<1859> p. 459).

Indeed, suffused throughout The Origin of Species are many expressions about "the web of complex relationships" in nature, the "infinitely complex relations" among species, and the "marked interdependence" of living forms.

It has been a cardinal assumption of neo-Darwinism that co-operation in nature is a theoretical "problem" -- a phenomenon that is at odds with the basic principle of gene competition, and that extraordinary conditions are required to overcome the inherent selective bias against the evolution of co-operation. Thus the importance attached to inclusive fitness theory (or kin selection, in Maynard Smith's term) and to game theory. However, a "bioeconomic" perspective on the evolutionary process challenges that point of view. In an overview and analysis of co-operative behaviors, Jerram Brown (1983:29) noted: "Natural selection is an ecological process and cannot be understood solely from genetic considerations. Relatedness to nondescendants does not determine the direction or product of natural selection; it only supplies an additional cost or benefit." Moreover, Jon Seger (1991), echoing Darwin's proposed explanation for human evolution in The Descent of Man, points out that the various hypothesized explanations for social life (what Darwin called "family selection", parental manipulation, group selection and mutualism) are not mutually exclusive and in many cases might reinforce one another.

<<

[HamdenRice]

26. I always wondered whether the "gay uncle" gene was related to "grandmother longevity gene" scenario

In other words, the OP raises an interesting question: if a gene is likely to prevent reproduction, how does it get passed on?

To elaborate on your idea, I think the orthodox evolutionary theory takes too narrow a view of reproduction and passing on genes. In may societies, a plurality of people don't reproduce and assist those who do. For example, in many polygamous a few men have many wives, but most men become expendable warriors, who nevertheless are critical to the reproduction of society as a whole. In Victorian England, about 1/3 of young people were placed "in service" as maids and servants and effectively were prevented from reproducing.

Recently, feminist evolutionary biologists have asked why human females potentially live so long after their reproductive lives, and came up with a theory that the existence of older, non-reproducing grandmothers was a critical factor in the survival of their grandchildren, as the mothers of the grandchildren were consumed with food gathering and production.

In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, kinship is matrilineal -- which means you are part of your mother's (not your father's) family, and the most important person in a child's life after his or her father is his or her "mother's brother" or maternal uncle. Mother's-brothers tended to be extremely indulgent toward their sister's children, providing extra food and affection, but the support is limited by their obligations to their own children.

In societies that are not homophobic (as many pre-industrial societies weren't), having an indulgent "gay uncle" would provide a survival edge to sister's-children, while also passing the "gay uncle's" genes.

On a slightly different note, I had a "gay uncle" figure (not actually an uncle buy a god-mother's son who we were close to) who was an important role model to my sister and I because in the 60s, he was pretty much the only successful professional African American we knew in our extended working class family.

His name was Malcolm Dodds, and he was openly gay from the mid 60s and we never really thought there was anything unusual about it. He was a singer-songwriter who was regularly on tv in the 1960s which was mind blowing to us as children. He wrote some pop tunes, but then made a career making jingles for commercials (also performed on tv in person sometimes, like the "double your pleasure with ... Double-mint-double-mint-double-mint gum jingle") and composed the anthem of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union ("Look for the Union Label").

[mondo joe]

27. Good call. Many species practice genetic success through non-reproductive means.

Bees are the most obvious. Almost no female bees reproduce - but their genes just keep perpetuating through their reproductive family members, whose offspring reap the benefit of the non reproductive relatives.

To be certain, my children share more of *my* genes than my sister's child does. But my sister's child passes on more of *my* genes than my children do of mine don't live long enough to reproduce.

[bluedawg12]

30. Well said! I wonder too if there is some correlation with the change from female based religions

and, as you said, the "existence of older, non-reproducing grandmothers was a critical factor in the survival of their grandchildren..."

And the trend to patriarchal religions, the decreased status of the older female in the tribe/village, the "crone" or wise woman of the group, and the rise of sexual prejudice?

It seems to me that a very adaptive and useful practice would be to cherish non-reproducing members of a human group who could contribute to the welfare of the group, thus, freeing up reproducing females, who are more vulnerable and also tied down to care for dependent and also vulnerable human infants?

[Zodiak]

29. I believe you are right

Kin-selection is a powerful evolutionary force. I have always maintained that gay humans operate in much the same manner as gay chimps (there are gay chimps)...they serve a purpose in an alpha male society that alphas are not very good at, and that enhances kin selection.

[bluedawg12]

35. Just to make sure I udnerstand it. Kin selection- defintion.

I thought I’d better look up the exact meaning of kin selection, to be sure I understand it.

Also, it’s sounding like game theory and the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a little.

...........
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection
Some organisms tend to exhibit strategies that favor the reproductive success of their relatives, even at a cost to their own survival and/or reproduction. The classic example is a eusocial insect colony, with sterile females acting as workers to assist their mother in the production of additional offspring. Many evolutionary biologists explain this by the theory of kin selection.

Kin selection refers to changes in gene frequency across generations that are driven at least in part by interactions between related individuals, and this forms much of the conceptual basis of the theory of social evolution. Indeed, some cases of evolution by natural selection can only be understood by considering how biological relatives influence one another's fitness. Under natural selection, a gene encoding a trait that enhances the fitness of each individual carrying it should increase in frequency within the population; and conversely, a gene that lowers the individual fitness of its carriers should be eliminated.

However, a gene that prompts behaviour which enhances the fitness of relatives but lowers that of the individual displaying the behavior, may nonetheless increase in frequency, because relatives often carry the same gene; this is the fundamental principle behind the theory of kin selection.


According to the theory, the enhanced fitness of relatives can at times more than compensate for the fitness loss incurred by the individuals displaying the behaviour. As such, this is a special case of a more general model, called "inclusive fitness" (in that inclusive fitness refers simply to gene copies in other individuals, without requiring that they be kin).

This has been invoked to explain the evolution of spiteful behaviours. Spiteful behavior defines an act (or acts) that results in harm, or loss of fitness, to both the actor and the recipient.

In the 1930s J.B.S. Haldane had full grasp of the basic quantities and considerations that play a role in kin selection. He famously said that, "I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins".<6>

Kin altruism is the term for altruistic behaviour whose evolution is supposed to have been driven by kin selection.

Haldane's remark alluded to the fact that if an individual loses its life to save two siblings, four nephews, or eight cousins, it is a "fair deal" in evolutionary terms, as siblings are on average 50% identical by descent, nephews 25%, and cousins 12.5% (in a diploid population that is randomly mating and previously outbred).

But Haldane also joked that he would truly die only to save more than one identical set of twins or more than two full siblings.
.........

[Zodiak]

39. Yup, that is a pretty good explanation

I am an entomologist, so I've heard the phrase a time or two. However, eusocial insects bring kin selection to the extreme. There are plenty of examples of it throughout nature, just far more subtle.

If I recall correctly...in chimp society, rival alpha males are drummed out of the group and die much younger, often without reproducing. Beta males are barely tolerated as long as they tow the line, but their altruistic behavior is often half-hearted, and their young are often killed. But homosexual chimps are widely accepted in the group and offer full-behavioral altruism, even caring for young, which increases the group's overall chances of survival.

Funny how chimps get it but so many humans do not?

So I preliminarily conclude that homosexuality is part of human nature. In mammals, it is often borne from an alpha-male social structure and it generally beneficial to survival because of kin selection. Without it, humans as a group are/were less likely to survive. Those genes may have another purpose, and that is to feminize our males so they can live in agrarian society and help take care of young, as was much of our human history.....a BIG reason for our success as a species.

Gays in society are as "normal" as any other gender role. That is what I think is lost in all of this political hooplah. Too much reading religious texts and too little reading of biology.

[bluedawg12]

40. Eusocial, lesbian Bonobos and some gay examples from nature.

Thank you for your comments!

This was an earlier thread about examples of homosexuality in nature.

The thread mentions the wonderful story of a pair of nesting gay male penguins (partners? married? civil union? not sure) that raised an orphaned egg successfully.

“Because it’s natural." Thread link below:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=89744&mesg_id=89744

......

Lesbian Bonobos:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Sexual_social_behavior

Bonobo females also engage in female-female genital sexual behavior, (tribadism), to bond socially with each other, thus forming a female nucleus of Bonobo society. The bonding among females allows them to dominate Bonobo society - although male Bonobos are individually stronger, they cannot stand alone against a united group of females.

Adolescent females often leave their native community to join another community. Sexual bonding with other females establishes the new females as members of the group. This migration mixes the Bonobo gene pools, providing genetic diversity.

............

And I needed :blush: to look up the meaning of eusocial. :think:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality

Eusociality (Greek eu: "good" + "social") is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification. The term "eusocial" was introduced in 1966 by Suzanne Batra<1> and given a more definitive meaning by E. O. Wilson.<2> It was originally defined to include those organisms (originally, only invertebrates) that had certain features:<3><4>

Reproductive division of labor (with or without sterile castes)
Overlapping generations
Cooperative care of young
The lower levels of social organization, presociality, were classified using different terms, including presocial, subsocial, semisocial, parasocial and quasisocial.

The most familiar examples are insects such as ants, bees, and wasps (order Hymenoptera), as well as termites (order Isoptera), all with reproductive queens and more or less sterile workers and/or soldiers. The only mammalian examples are the naked mole rat and the Damaraland mole rat.<5>

Eusociality with biologically sterile individuals represents the most extreme form of kin altruism. The analysis of eusociality played a key role in the development of theories in sociobiology.

The phenomenon of reproductive specialization is found in various organisms. It generally involves the production of sterile members of the species, which carry out specialized tasks, effectively caring for the reproductive members. It can manifest in the appearance of individuals within a group whose behavior (and sometimes anatomy) is modified for group defense, including self-sacrifice ("altruism").

......

In line with your statement: "Gays in society are as "normal" as any other gender role. That is what I think is lost in all of this political hooplah. Too much reading religious texts and too little reading of biology."

I am reminded about this:

>>Georgetown University professor Janet Mann has specifically theorized that homosexual behavior, at least in dolphins, is an evolutionary advantage that minimizes intraspecies aggression, especially among males.<145> Studies indicating prenatal homosexuality in certain animal species have had social and political implications surrounding the gay rights debate.<146>

Two Hundred Years at Looking at Homosexual Wildlife, Explaining (Away) Animal Homosexuality and Not For Breeding Only in his 1999 book Biological Exuberance to the "documentation of systematic prejudices" where he notes "the present ignorance of biology lies precisely in its single-minded attempt to find reproductive (or other) "explanations" for homosexuality, transgender, and non-procreative and alternative heterosexualities. Petter Bøckman, academic adviser for the Against Nature? exhibit states

"Many researchers have described homosexuality as something altogether different from sex. They must realise that animals can have sex with who they will, when they will and without consideration to a researcher's ethical principles". <<

[Jamastiene]

33. Mother Nature put us here and keeps us around for a reason.

What that reason is, I don't know. I just know it's good thing to know she's on our side, in reality.

[bluedawg12]

34. Yupper. We are too prevalent and enduring to be a mistake

or to be "unnatural."

[bluedawg12]

9. Shattering the Sacred Myths

http://www.evolutionary-metaphysics.net/sexual_morality.html


>>Sexual reproduction
Most people consider it to be their purpose in life to find a partner and raise a family. Men, women, and the traditional family structure have all evolved for the creation, protection, and education of new generations. But there is a cold reality behind the warmth of love. Sexual reproduction is about increasing the rate of evolution, not about increasing the size of the population.

The reason why humankind is divided into males and females is because sexual reproduction allows the beneficial mutations from separate ancestries to be combined in the DNA of a few fortunate children. Sexual desire is usually what brings couples together, romantic feelings keep them interested for a time, and then the bond that grows through familiarity may keep them together for life.


There are no perfect rules for sexual behavior, but the conservative elements of society often try to enforce traditional rules and understandings. Sometimes when these rules are based upon mistaken ideas, they generate more problems than they solve.

Since prehistoric times, restraint of the sexual instinct has been one of the primary responsibilities of religion. Females were generally forbidden from having sex until a public commitment was made by the male to stay with the female and raise the children. Marriage rituals and laws against adultery reduced the transmission of sexual diseases and provided a stable family environment for the raising of new generations. In some cultures, divorce was forbidden and adultery was punishable by death.


Population growth
Around ten thousand years ago, the population of the entire world was around ten million people. This was the maximum number of people that could be fed by hunting wild animals and gathering plants. The population increased when the climate improved and the land became more fertile. When the climate worsened and the land became less fertile, children starved and the competition for territory usually led to tribal war.

Food became abundant and populations grew as the knowledge of farming spread. By the time of the Roman Empire, the population of the world had multiplied to over one hundred million people.

Albert Einstein once said ...

I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet.

While most religious leaders express strong opinions on issues associated with sexual morality like marriage, homosexuality, and abortion, they rarely ever speak out about real moral issues like racism, dictatorship, or war. If anything, traditional religion is often used to justify these rather than to oppose them.
........

[donco6]

13. Some studies are saying my cancer (lymphoma) has a genetic component.

But no one else in my family has had it. It may be triggered by environmental pollution, explaining the skyrocketing incidence rate.

Maybe the "gay" gene is like that. Especially in a household with more sibling males (I had two older brothers).

Very interesting article.

[mondo joe]

16. Matt Ridley writes about how fuzzy the line of nature/environment is, and does so

beautifully.

What is immutable about us is more than just genetic. :-)

[donco6]

14. So, in other words, gays are a solution, not a problem.

I've always felt that way. We add far more than we take away. Very positive article - highly recommended!

[Maven]

15. Decent article, but I see a lot of claptrap assumptions in it

that gay men are naturally less aggressive, more feminine etc.

Also the assumption that homosexuality should have been selected out even in humans because it cuts our reproductive potential to zero.

[donco6]

18. Yeah, the "demasculinization" part was a bit too much.

I've known plenty of hyper-masculine gay men. And not just as part of a costume, either.

[Maven]

19. That's what I was thinking.

Still, fascinating article.

[bluedawg12]

22. The way I read it was : kinder, gentler, more nurturing

BTW--Good discussion everyone- I am learning quite a lot here. Thank you! :fistbump:

........
"By interfering with the masculinization of the brain, gay genes might promote feminine behavior traits, making men who carry them kinder, gentler, more nurturing..."

I understood it as a look at long term evolutionary traits that are beneficial and not modern cultural terms of masculine and feminine.

In the animal world, there are instances of males killing the offspring of other males for two reasons:

1.) to pass on their own genes
2.) to free up the female from nurturing young and getting her to breed again.

........

The other question about why we gays endure and persist in term of genetics, and why that might be a puzzling thing.

In terms of the cost of sexual reproduction, and how costly it is in terms of time, resources and energy, to sexually reproduce, as opposed to some examples in nature of asexual reproduction, which may seem more efficient and reproducing, but does not confer favorable traits as rapidly as:

http://www.evolutionary-philosophy.net/sex.html
Genetic recombination
The most popular theory among respectable evolutionists is that sexual reproduction allows ‘genetic recombination’. In other words ...

• beneficial mutations from separate ancestries can be combined
• beneficial mutations can be separated from harmful mutations
• unsuccessful genetic traits can easily disappear from an existing population

Without sexual reproduction, natural selection acts upon the entire genetic makeup of an organism, but with sexual reproduction, natural selection acts upon individual genetic traits.

With sexual reproduction, less than one in four offspring will receive the best genetic traits from both parents. However, natural selection seems to be very effective at eliminating the least successful variations, especially in the harsh conditions of the wild, where only a fraction of all newly conceived offspring survive until breeding age...

Increasing the rate of evolution
Evolution generally favors organisms that evolve faster, because they can adapt more rapidly to changing conditions and compete more successfully against other variations.

The speed at which organisms evolve depends on the rate at which they mutate. However, almost all mutations are harmful. Only very rarely will a mutant be more successful at surviving and breeding than its parent.

With asexual reproduction, each ancestry is likely to accumulate many more harmful mutations than beneficial ones. And so for asexual organisms, natural selection will generally favor those with the lowest mutation rate.

However, with sexual reproduction, beneficial mutations can be separated from harmful ones, and so the reproductive systems of sexually reproducing organisms can evolve to maintain a consistently high rate of mutation...

Other theories
One of the more popular alternative theories for the evolution of sex is the idea that sexual reproduction generates greater genetic diversity. This would be particularly important in rapidly changing environments, where some variations might be wiped out by new conditions while other variations might be better adapted to survive.

Perhaps the most common form of this theory is the 'Red Queen Hypothesis' which says that greater genetic variation gives sexually reproducing species better resistance to rapidly adapting diseases and parasites. As valid as this hypothesis may be, it gets an undeserved amount of attention, probably because it is one of the few theories for which there might be some valid experimental evidence.

The problem with this theory is that the connection between sexual reproduction and genetic diversity is tenuous, because the diversity of a population would depend on its mutation rate rather than its mode of reproduction...<<

[Meeker Morgan]

21. But see that proves homosexuality is evil because ...

... it's evolution. :evilgrin:

[bluedawg12]

23. It proves an intelligent "gay" designer! LOL!!!

:evilgrin:

[BR_Parkway]

28. If they discover that I'm gay because Mom ate an olive on some specific

day during my time in the womb and it turned on my gay gene, I'm gonna have a martini! And then laugh my ass off.

[bluedawg12]

32. If they discover you're gay because your mom ate an olive

then, would giving away olives be considered part of the "gay agenda" the rw fears so much? :rofl:

[BR_Parkway]

38. Don't know, but just in case, I'm gonna take a bottle down to the cute

boy at the other end of the block....:)

[blue neen]

36. This is the most interesting thread I have read here in ages.

DU has some very intelligent people!

Genetics is a fascinating science; maybe that's why the fundies reject a genetic basis for homosexuality--it's all about science rather than God. In their world God controls everything, in real life it's just not that way.

[bluedawg12]

37. Yupper- I am learning a ton here! The rw hates science, read why>

There is a book: The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney

The link has great excerpts from that book.

It is a fascinating look at a concerted political decision to attack science, they also conflate it with secularism and then of course the tired old story: it's a war on religion!!! Yikes!

http://www.waronscience.com/home.php

The Republican War on Science first came out in hardcover in the fall of 2005, amidst the unprecedented destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. Even as I went on tour and spoke to large crowds deeply worried about political attacks on science, my own family had fled New Orleans and my mother’s home in the city’s Lakeview neighborhood had been destroyed by ten feet of floodwater. It was a very difficult time, and yet also a crucial one for speaking out about the importance of good scientific information to public policy.

I wish I could say that since those days, the situation I denounced in such strong terms (read the original introduction from 2005 here) had at least slightly improved. Yet if anything, I fear it may have grown worse. The attacks on science, and their sponsorship by Republican politicians, continue apace, with the Bush administration leading the way but key members of Congress following close behind. These politicians, in turn, appear driven by a continual need to appease key sectors of the Republican base that have inconvenient slices of scientific information constantly in their sights.

<snip>

NEARLY FORTY YEARS AGO, in 1966, two talented young political thinkers published an extraordinary book, one that reads, in retrospect, as a profound warning to the Republican Party that went tragically unheeded.

The authors had been roommates at Harvard University, and had participated in the Ripon Society, an upstart group of Republican liberals. They had worked together on Advance, dubbed “the unofficial Republican magazine,” which slammed the party from within for catering to segregationists, John Birchers, and other extremists. Following their graduation, both young men moved into the world of journalism and got the chance to further advance their “progressive” Republican campaign in a book for the eminent publisher Alfred A. Knopf. In their spirited 1966 polemic The Party That Lost Its Head, they held nothing back. The book devastatingly critiqued Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential candidacy—the modern conservative movement’s primal scene—and dismissed the GOP’s embrace of rising star Ronald Reagan as the party’s hope to “usurp reality with the fading world of the class-B movie.“

Read today, some of the most prophetic passages of The Party That Lost Its Head are those that denounce Goldwater’s conservative backers for their rampant and even paranoid distrust of the nation’s intellectuals. The book labels the Goldwater campaign a “brute assault on the entire intellectual world” and blames this development on a woefully wrongheaded political tactic: “In recent years the Republicans as a party have been alienating intellectuals deliberately, as a matter of taste and strategy.“

<snip>

Certainly, the proliferation of think tanks has not had as a corollary that conservatives now take scientific expertise more seriously. On the contrary, the Right has a strong track record of deliberately attempting to undermine scientific work that might threaten the economic interests of private industry. Perhaps more alarmingly still, similar tactics have also been brought to bear by the Right in the service of a religiously conservative cultural and moral agenda....read more at the link...<<

[Ellen Forradalom]

41. The first sentence expresses neatly

the faulty thinking of the but-it's-unnatural crowd. Man is a social animal, so favorable survival strategies are not just individual, they are communal. Everyone matters in a social unit, particularly in a species where the cost of child-rearing is so high.