Harvey Newstrom wrote:
No problem. I just have a hot-button when people mention homosexuality as
an evolutionary dead end. In my mind it indicates the classic flaw in
believing that every single individual has to propagate or else it is not
furthering the evolution of the group. This is clearly false to anyone who
has studied biology. Anything that helps the group survive improves the
breed.
An example: Drones help a beehive survive. Just because they don't produce does not mean that they are an evolutionary dead end. Their evolution was crucial in the survival of hive-based groups. By having non-reproducing workers do all the engineering and work, this frees up the breeders to do nothing but breed. Neither could survive without the other. People who think that the breeders are highly evolved while the drones are unevolved, deviant evolutionary mistakes, is not recognizing the full range of evolutionary processes. Evolution developed the entire hive structure to allow the propagation of each succeeding generation. (end of reproduction)
Even though homosexual individuals over the course of history have contributed a great deal I cannot see this as an evolutionary adaptation. When it comes to supporting the "breeders" of society with their young offspring I think of a teenage girl coming over to babysit and not the friendly gay neighbor! lol And we do not have heterosexual couples doing nothing but breeding while they are provided for by hordes of gay human "drones!" Of course we don't have insect-like reproductive rates either!
It would be interesting to know just how accurate the "ten per cent of the population is homosexual" rule is true. In a class discussion I had some felt it could be as low as two per cent for males and as high as one-third for females but this was just conjecture.
I tend to think homosexuality is rooted in the genes but environment could play a major factor also. Imagine a world where parents can have the DNA of their unborn baby scanned and if "gay genes" are detected they can be replaced. It would be fascinating to see sociologically whether homosexual numbers would shrink or remain stable. Would government try to stop this from happening? I don't think so in the United States.
sincerely,
John Grigg