Gays: Evolution's Success Story?

originally posted by: Lucid Lunacy
a reply to: OhOkYeah

You can easily have sex and have it be an act of intimacy without it ever contributing to reproduction [either intentionally or via infertility].

Yet still, as far as your bodily functions are concerned, it's still an attempt at reproduction.

a reply to: OhOkYeah

Since the context was sex itself.

Yet still, as far as your bodily functions are concerned, it's still an attempt at reproduction.

Explain oral sex.

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: PraeterLambo

Gays are certainly intelligent, talented and resourceful.

Are you suggesting there is a correlation between being gay and being intelligent? I would love to see your research on this as I have found gays can be just as stupid or smart as anyone else. Also, your theory regarding gays as being special, in an evolutionary sense, may make you feel better, but it is comical and preposterous.

there is a correlation between heterosexuals reproducing and gay people being born. just sayin.

originally posted by: Lucid Lunacy
a reply to: OhOkYeah

Since the context was sex itself.

Yet still, as far as your bodily functions are concerned, it's still an attempt at reproduction.

Explain oral sex.

What about it do you have trouble understanding?

If that were the case wouldn't most of the race be hermaphrodite like, then Religions should of been Hetrophobic. Well if the supposed macro theory about us coming from a single cell organism, able to asexually reproduce, and then some how becomes two distinct sexes. And somewhere along line during incubation the programming might just get confused, allowing many different mix ups and the distinctions, nerve path way, stimuli, blah blah, yada yada between the two sexes.

The other thing is we are complex creatures, and are probably more sensual due to us being one of the few monogamous(most of the time I'd guess) animals on this planets wouldn't really make sense with Darwinism? Darwinism, might as well be like Machiavellism in that fashion, where its the strong, adaptable, and able to reproduce that survive, even though it just an observation of how organism became what they am.

It like what Grisome said in CSI, "we might be the mistake", by saying, in the grand macro of chaos, males and females are the mistake. Some fish can change their sexes at will, so it all go to do with programming.

It not my team, but this is my opinion.

Eve should of been first in the story, where as Adam should of been her boy toy, while Satan was in between the lines of that arrangment, being a snake in the grass, or bush that he was. But then there Lilith, but she probably ate the first Adam, or Eve even, like T-Rex.

And I saw 300.

a reply to: OhOkYeah

What about it do you have trouble understanding?

I have trouble understanding why the scope of the conversation is being limited to biological necessities. The purpose of sex has greater scope. The things that drive its necessity transcend the mere biological need to reproduce.

a reply to: Metallicus

It is whatever you want it to be, Some Heterosexual couples never want Kids, some Heterosexual people are born Sterile and they still have Sex. i don't think you can say Sex is only for on reason and than base "Natural" or "unnatural" Sexual-Orientations on it

a reply to: Metallicus

INTELLIGENCE AND HOMOSEXUALITY

personal.lse.ac.uk...

Are gay brains different from straight brains? One researcher seems to think so. Satoshi Kanazawa argued in the Journal of Biosocial Science that gay people are typically born with more intelligence than the average heterosexual, showing data and evolutionary trends to validate his point.

Even though the study is over a year old, researchers are beginning to look at it more seriously after the MacArthur Foundation revealed the recipients of its so-called “genius” award last week. Three of the 24 winners were openly gay which led some to assume that gay geniuses existed in more numbers than their heterosexual counterparts within the normal population.


According to Kanazawa’s study, smart people are better able to override evolutionary impulses and can adapt to new stimuli and desires more effectively than the average person, which is why smart people are more likely to be vegetarians. According to the same logic, smart people might be more willing to engage in or be more willing to express same-sex fantasies or desires.

Kanazawa also says that homosexuality is an evolutionary handicap since it prevents reproduction – an idea which has polarized many people in the scientific community. In another theory called Sexually Antagonistic Selection, genetic factors which cause homosexuality in one sibling could create more fertility in another, creating a balance effect.

Sociologists aren’t looking at science to question this theory, instead they are looking at data which seem to semi-support it, but not entirely. Recent studies find that gay households are more likely to have a combined income and college degrees than straight ones (obvious signs of intelligence). Gay men in college also show to have high GPAs and be more involved in extracurricular activities.

This isn’t the first study to conclude such arguments. It’s been a well-thought theory for decades that gay people are not only smarter, but more creative as well. Some psychologists in the 1950s even thought that being gay was the root of creativity, this was obviously proven wrong.

But if there’s one perspective which might hold some validity, it’s that gay people are well aware of their adversities from an early age. This in itself opens the mind up in ways no straight person is able to experience. As soon as the brain can put together a logical thought, we know we’re different. From that moment, our perspective towards the world is altered. Perhaps this is the real source as to why gay people are often viewed as more “intelligent.” But in my opinion, it’s more intuitive rather than intelligent.

Gay people are no smarter than straight people – at least in my opinion. If we’re going to preach the message that straight marriage and straight love is the same as gay marriage and gay love, we have to conclude that our brains abide by the same rules. Though this theory makes one hell of a dinner conversation, I’m going to have to intuitively decline the idea.

www.gayguys.com...

I think so.

a reply to: PraeterLambo

I'm afraid your understanding of evolution is imperfect, and so is that of those who tried to correct you. Evolution occurs through natural selection among similar but not quite identical individuals in a population. Mutation provides the variation on which selection acts but it is not the cause of evolution. Plants and animals are not 'programmed' to evolve; they may be programmed to eat, sleep, excrete, fight, mate and raise their young, but they're not programmed to evolve.

Therefore, the argument regarding homosexuals is invalid. The question of why homosexuality persists is an interesting one in evolutionary biology, and all the usual opinions will be aired on this thread. My own feeling is that it confers a selective advantage on kin, and is therefore weakly selected for. But it is only a feeling.

It's actually the end goal of God's Creation and is preserving order in the species from degeneration, it would seem.

Amusing, provocative nonsense.

a reply to: vjr1113

natural selection is not part of human nature anymore.

On the contrary, it is very active indeed.

no one has to die any more (in the west) to have sex.

The point is not about dying to have sex but living long enough to reproduce, and that's only the first hurdle that needs to be leapt.

Rape aside (and there are reasons why rape is an evolutionarily unhelpful reproductive strategy), the only way for a man to reproduce is to find a woman willing to have sex with him. The same goes vice versa, of course, though it's less of a problem and there's always artificial insemination. But traditional nookie is still the way most humans reproduce.

Yet — as many frustrated basement-dwelling male ATSers will testify — women are fussy. They don't mate with just anybody. Many human males will never reproduce because of this. It's called sexual selection, it is a kind of natural selection, and it was identified by Darwin himself in The Descent of Man.

Sexual selection is still with us. It is as active in Western societies as in any other. More so, in fact, because in many non-Western societies marriages are arranged and the criteria on which spouses are chosen are primarily wealth and astrological compatibility. Health is important, too, but hereditary disease is easy enough to conceal unless there are gross physical deformities associated with it.

Also, it is pretty clear that, especially among the poor and disadvantaged, many young men (and some women) will die around the time they reach reproductive age. They die of drugs, crime-related violence, etc. They die in war. They blow themselves up in suicide attacks. All this is just as true of the West as it is elsewhere.

And even among those are that relatively favoured or privileged, many will not be blessed with offspring. Mental-health problems, poor locomotor and coordination skills, fatal quarrels, isolation, occupational obstacles and many other issues will stop some people from reproducing while others continue to do so. That is nature's winnow at work.

Natural selection is very much with us still, and we are still evolving. This is quite plain to see once one takes the blinkers of received wisdom off and takes an inquiring, scientific look around.

The tolerance of homosexuals in our society is due to education and civil freedom.

In my country, homosexual behaviour was widely accepted until the colonial powers showed up and began their conquista espiritual. The same is true of many countries in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia. Tolerance of homosexuals in post-Judaeo-Christian societies is a frail plant that needs to be nurtured; in Islamic ones it does not even exist. Unfortunately, homophobia is prevalent in other countries too, now that European colonialism, American missionaries and Saudi-financed Wahabi activism have spread Western prejudice around the world.

It's very hard to define human evolution, but i think happiness and well being is the goal for humanity.

Human evolution is no different from any other kind of evolution. It has no goals, any more than oxidation or precipitation have goals.

Homosexuality is caused by Toxoplasma Gondii..Its a parasitic DNA Mutation

a reply to: SPECULUM

Yes we have heard you say that before. You have also said homosexuality is a choice many times. Which obviously is in direct contradiction to the idea it's caused by a 'DNA mutation'. You're all over the map with your anti-homosexuality. No one takes you seriously.

Also, hardly the topic.

originally posted by: SPECULUM
Homosexuality is caused by Toxoplasma Gondii..Its a parasitic DNA Mutation

I think it more likely that toxoplasmosis causes homophobia rather than homosexuality.

originally posted by: PraeterLambo
From what I understand Evolution is like a computer program that tweaks and learns as it's going with the end goal being perfection or reaching a point where any more tweaking would be detrimental. We've yet to observe what happens when the program exits because it has used up all its options. Or have we?

If the program is set to execute at conception and it has run out of variables, wouldn't it start to reuse the ones at the end of the coding and start a regressive process? If that continued over successive generations you would end up with a devolving species. Maybe this is what happened to crocodiles, alligators, tortoises and turtles after the dinosaurs. Their legs shrank, they became slower and they moved to the beaches and the water to return from whence they came.

To prevent this happening one would expect the program to have a fail safe. To prevent reactivation at conception, reproduction would be terminated. This could explain the demise of the dinosaurs. They reached a stage in their evolution where any more generations would be degenerative. The vast majority simply didn't reproduce and a few species with a faulty fail safe continued but on a path of devolving.

That brings us to our own species. Three percent of the population won't reproduce naturally because they are attracted to the same sex. Is this the fail safe in action? The gay population doesn't appear to be shrinking, although it's hard to tell given it was stigmatised for so long. Evolution-wise they should just disappear but they don't. Each generation produces its own gay population.

What if gays are the end result of the program that's been running millions of years? Biologically speaking it could be easier for the program to switch gender preference than mess around with the reproductive organs which it deems to be evolved as it is.

Gays are certainly intelligent, talented and resourceful. We saw that during AIDS when they pooled their resources and learned biology from scratch to understand the disease long before any governments did. They made incredible progress in such a short time.

So, it seems to make sense that while there is the capacity to evolve, a species will reproduce, but when it has maximised the potential, reproduction becomes damaging.

To be born gay should be an aspiration and not a sin if this is the case. Homosexuality is not objectively disordered and a contravention of the natural order as the Church claims. It's actually the end goal of God's Creation and is preserving order in the species from degeneration, it would seem.

I refuse to board this crazy train....you are nuts

a reply to: odinsway

All that text for such a short response lol. You have to learn how to quote dude. I agree with your post, though.

The genes that gets mutated will have to be passed on. Strictly speaking gays don't do this. So to me the question remains, why would evolution produce something it cannot do anything with? Ofcourse a gay might have mutations but what would be the point if those mutations don't get passed on.

There might be a day when science has all the answers about the human body. I'm sure by then children will be playing genetic games, like creating plants or pets with DNA from different species. Lots of genetically modified food, like different fruits put together to create a whole new one.

I don't believe evolution will stop anytime soon, besides genetics there's also technology as pointed out. And a whole new stage might happen if we ever meet life from other planets.

In the future it might become a question to the parents: "we have found evidence your son is going to be homosexual, do you want this?" and then the parents can decide wether or not they would change it or leave it. That'll become a discussion.

a reply to: johnnyjoe1979

So to me the question remains, why would evolution produce something it cannot do anything with? Ofcourse a gay might have mutations but what would be the point if those mutations don't get passed on.

One possible answer is that we share genes with our kin (siblings, cousins, nephews, nieces), and by making it possible for them to survive and reproduce we are helping our own genes reproduce. Gay people (and animals) may play some kind of role in helping their siblings and other kin in the evolutionary struggle.

There might be a day when science has all the answers about the human body.

If that day comes, it will be so far in the future that it will in all probability ceased to matter.

So, to sum up, nobody really knows what evolution is, or at least can't agree, and given evolution is such a slow process it's not something observable in two hundred years. Fossil records are no use because they rarely contain whole DNA strings. So everyone guesses. What's the difference between a random mutation that is successful and an evolution program? If a = a random mutation and b = a random environment variable, if a is greater than b, retain a until a is less than b and start over. Isn't that natural selection? As far as I can tell, nobody has described evolution this way but then we don't have enough data to create computer models for evolution.

Of course, to anyone straight, the idea a gay person might be superior doesn't register. Gays have been and in many places are still treated as inferiors. Blacks endured the same thing, but since the 60s they have equalled whites in science and of course politics. Given the opportunity, as the above article started saying, gays are statistically more intelligent than straights. The sad fact is that most don't get the opportunity to reach their potential, forced to conform with the majority.

If you liked my theory jump a paragraph.

To those who laughed this off with no explanation, your homophobia resounds as does your unevolved common sense. Do you know how challenging it is to tolerate the stupidity of the straight majority? I know how God felt with Adam and Eve. There must be a point where an organism cannot change anymore without repeating a previous stage which was surpassed out of necessity. If a is 1 and has a limit of 1, if b is 1.01, a can only decrease and still not be enough. That, surely, is a step backwards. Why even attempt to continue the species?

We have no clue how many gays there are now, never mind a thousand years ago. The fact that the Bible allegedly doesn't refer to them would suggest they were a much smaller minority so as to be inconsequential. Gays are very much consequential now and influencing policy in a democracy. It seems reasonable to assume the gay population since say, 3000 BC, has increased from below 1% to over 2%. In evolutionary terms that's quite a leap, isn't it? Why the increase if it's a step in the wrong direction after 60 generations?

To those who are gay, the 'gay gene' centres on X20q12 which is largely responsible for reproduction. X20q12 creates relationships with so many other genes including Xq28 that any variation in it is amplified. Being on the X chromosone it passes down the female line as expected.

To the guy who said religion should be heterophobic. You are bang on! It is! Anyone with an evolved intelligence can see it is. But we''re gay and the majority don't listen to us.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: johnnyjoe1979

So to me the question remains, why would evolution produce something it cannot do anything with? Ofcourse a gay might have mutations but what would be the point if those mutations don't get passed on.

One possible answer is that we share genes with our kin (siblings, cousins, nephews, nieces), and by making it possible for them to survive and reproduce we are helping our own genes reproduce. Gay people (and animals) may play some kind of role in helping their siblings and other kin in the evolutionary struggle.

Jumping off this idea, perhaps homosexuals don't have healthy genes to pass on, but have strong enough personality/wisdom to pass on to future generations. We know some cultures revered them as closer to the creator, the study posted above says they are intelligent, and they do add a non-binary perspective to the world.

Our idea of a two parent nuclear family makes it hard to raise children even in the modern world. Perhaps with their attraction to the same gender, there is no risk of fighting for dominance of offspring, yet they would have a stake in the children well being. Combine that with a same sex relationship for bonding (especially with a couple with one bi) and you have a stable (but polygamous) family.

a reply to: PraeterLambo

Your post tells me you still have a childs grasp on the theory of evolution. Please don't insult either gays or evolution by getting them mixed up in your woeful web of misconceptions.