Wilso wrote:Setanta wrote:There is also no good reason to assume that the children of a homosexual man or woman will themselves be homosexual.
Seems to me, regardless of other possible circumstances raised, that the vast majority of gay people ARE the offspring of heterosexuals!
I'd say you're on safe ground with that one, Wilso.
Setanta wrote:First, you would need to establish as fact that there is a "gay gene." Secondly, your thesis is flawed because it relies upon an assertion that "religion" is naturally homophobic. You have taken, as you did in your thread about education and religion, the Judeo-Christian tradition as the only valid example of what constitutes "religion." In that thread, having begged the initial question of whether or not it were true that better-educated people are "less religious," you proceeded to ask questions which themselves begged questions. For example, you asked if that accounted for why "religion" attacks "science." But that is simply a phenomenon of fundamentalist religious belief, and in particular, the experience of the United States.
You consistently take a very narrow view. Not all religion is condemnatory of homosexuality. There is also no good reason to assume that the children of a homosexual man or woman will themselves be homosexual. You really need to broaden your understanding of the human condition.
Setana, I think what STL is trying to say that in "general" a majority of religions (i.e. the three major ones, Christianity, Islam, Judaism) have condemned homosexuality and have therefore encouraged passing along a "gay gene" if it does exist by way of coercing homosexuals into heterosexual partnerships.
And lets not overdramatize "thesis" and call a spade a spade. STL is more or less just offering up ideas to provoke conversation, albeit a bit militantly anti-religious. lol
I know what he is "trying" to say. That does not alter either that the three Abrahamic religions do not constitute the majority of theologies in human history, nor does it in any way authorize a silly contention about a gay gene. As has already been pointed out, there is no evidence that the children of homosexuals will be homosexual themselves, and that homosexuals may well be the children of heterosexuals. The only genetic inference to be drawn from that would be that if there were a genetic disposition to homosexuality, it must be recessive.
Nor is it even reasonable to assert that the Abrahamic religions have been monolithically anti-homosexual. Expedient governs religious policy throughout human history.
Mary of Guise married James V of Scotland. There is no historical evidence, not even rumor, that either of them were homosexual. They produced a single child, a daughter, who was born six days before her father died. She first married Francis II of France, but after his death, she married Lord Darnley, and they produced a son, James, who would become James VI of Scotland. There is no historical evidence that either Mary Queen of Scots nor Lord Darnley was homosexual, not even rumor.
After Mary was executed by Queen Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland became the heir apparent to the English throne. When Elizabeth died in 1603, James came south and took up residence in Whitehall. He brought his wife, whom he lodged more than a half mile from his own chambers, and his lover, the Earl of Dorset, was lodged next door. There can be little doubt that James (for whom the King James Bible is named) was homosexual. There is no historical evidence that his wife, Anne of Denmark, was homosexual, not even rumor. They produced three children: Henry, who died in childhood; Elizabeth, who became the Queen of Bohemia (which leads to Prince Rupert and the Hudson's Bay Company, but i'll let that lie), and Charles, who became King Charles I. There is no historical evidence that Charles, nor his wife, Henrietta Maria of France, were homosexual, not even rumor. They produced several children, who were to be prominent in European history. That included Charles, who would one day succeed his father as Charles II; James, who would succeed his brother as James II; Mary, who would marry the Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, and who would give birth to William, Prince of Orange--William married his first cousin Mary, and William and Mary succeeded Mary's father James II, when he was driven from the throne.
There you have 150 years of history in the Stuart royal family of Scotland and England, which produced one notorious homosexual, who caused the bible to be translated into English anew, and produced the bible which has been the mainstay of Protestant christianity in the English-speaking world. There is no reason to assume that James' homosexuality was inherited, nor that any of his descendants inherited homosexuality from him. What is more to the point, though, is the the Anglicans and Puritans of England, for whatever their distaste may have been, never objected to James being King, even though it was well-known that he was homosexual. The Lutherans of Denmark did not object to his marriage to Anne of Denmark. Marie de Medici and her husband, King Henry IV of France, raised no objection as Catholics to their Catholic daughter Henrietta Maria marrying the Protestant son, Charles, of the homosexual King of England, James.
Basically, what i object to here is the simple-minded basis for Stlstrike's theses concerning religion. This is not the first time he has trotted out so ill-considered a thesis.
I think he hits the nail on the head w/r/t religion, they are by and large homo-phobic. As for a gene for homosexuality, probably not a gene which makes it certain one will be homosexual.
And people, for some strange reason, think evolution can act at the level of the population- balderdash! There is no substantial evidence for group-selection.
ahem, i have one thing to say, does "recreational sex" have anything to do with "producing children"?
At first glance it does, but a gay man can have sex with a woman just to have a kid if he wanted, but it might be a purely business type of thing
I've often wondered if rates of homosexuality increase in more heavily populated urban areas, or in times of apparent overpopulation, where survival of the tribe is subconciously taken for granted, as opposed to being a subconcious motivation in underpopulated areas/times. Does anyone know if this has been studied?
Eorl wrote:I've often wondered if rates of homosexuality increase in more heavily populated urban areas, or in times of apparent overpopulation, where survival of the tribe is subconciously taken for granted, as opposed to being a subconcious motivation in underpopulated areas/times. Does anyone know if this has been studied?
I don't know, but such a study would be tainted, as those who live in more heaviliy populated urban areas are probably more comfortable identifying themselves as homosexuals as it is less likely that their house will be torched to the ground by a bunch of George Bush-loving, Milwaukee's Best-drinking, NRA-cardholding Hoosiers in Chevy pickups.
Right, and people who were born in rural/ non-urban areas and are gay or lesbian will often move out of those areas and into urban areas.
Re: Is homosexuality an evolutionary mistake?
stlstrike3 wrote:As a gay person who actually understands evolution, I do have to wonder... isn't homosexuality the ultimate slap in the face? I am an evolutionary dead-end unless I donate sperm. Do not get me wrong. I'm an ego-congruent homosexual. I have no problem with how I was built. But I'm willing to accept the fact that my sexual orientation was an error of biology. I find the concept fascinating.
Thoughts?
I don't think that evolution ( directly ) has anything to do with it. According to one theory, positional factors
in utero do play an important role in determining whether a person will be a homosexual.
Of course, we could continue and say that perhaps,
in utero postition in mammals has been determined ( at least in part) by evolutionary factors.
Re: Is homosexuality an evolutionary mistake?
stlstrike3 wrote:As a gay person who actually understands evolution, I do have to wonder... isn't homosexuality the ultimate slap in the face? I am an evolutionary dead-end unless I donate sperm. Do not get me wrong. I'm an ego-congruent homosexual. I have no problem with how I was built. But I'm willing to accept the fact that my sexual orientation was an error of biology. I find the concept fascinating.
It's fascinating, but not necessarily true. Keep in mind that most of our observable features are influenced by several genes, and most of our genes influence several of our observable features. The genes that make homosexuality more likely may have other beneficial effects on their (straight) carriers' chances to survive and reproduce. This would cause natural selection to favor them.
I wonder if straight men, on average, have sex with more women in a lifetime than gay men.
I know it sounds obvious, but it ain't necessarily so.
Eorl wrote:I wonder if straight men, on average, have sex with more women in a lifetime than gay men.
I wonder if gay men have more sex than straight men...
Thomas
+JPBs
comments
interesting,
more
when
I
have
new
keyboard.
Miller wrote:Eorl wrote:I wonder if straight men, on average, have sex with more women in a lifetime than gay men.
I wonder if gay men have more sex than straight men...
When I first read Miller's response to Eorl, I read it as "I wonder if gay men have more sex with straight men...and I thought, "they probably do, or at least that's what the "straight" men are telling themselves."
raprap wrote:But bonobo's aren't are closest evolutionary neighbor, they're chimpanzees and they're rather warlike. One could then extrapolate a warrior gene that prefers the company of men.
There are many urban legends asserting that either the Bonobos or the Chimpanzees are more closely related to us. But they are all false. In the family tree of apes, Chimpanzees and Bonobos split from each other after their common ancestors split from ours. This means that Chimpanzees and Bonobos are both equally closely related to humans.
[img]http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/images/chart.gif[/img]
The source of this image is a
UC Berkeley press release about a fossil from a time near the separation of the two branches.
I take offense at the presumption that homosexuality is a trait to be "selected out."
On the contrary, I tend to think it was selected IN.
USAFHokie80 wrote:I take offense at the presumption that homosexuality is a trait to be "selected out."
Who made that presumption?
sozobe wrote:
It seems like it might be (note qualifiers, this stuff is still new and indefinite) that men are either/or -- men are born gay or not, and stick with that orientation throughout -- while women are pretty much all biologically bisexual, more like the bonobos as mentioned earlier. And that different things "make" a woman lesbian.
Although it is not correct to assert that all women are biologically bisexual, or predisposed to bisexuality for that matter, there's some evidence that women can be sexually aroused by watching both male-female and female-only erotica.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/06/030613075252.htm
If social issues are removed from the equation (such as adoption), then wouldn't homosexuality by definition become an evolutionary dead end, because it does not lead to reproduction? Regardless of one's attitude toward the subject, that would seem to be the inevitable conclusion as it applies to natural selection.
