Is the existence of homosexuality incompatible with evolution?

The Biological Basis of Homosexuality
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"A biological basis for human homosexuality is well established in the scientific community, but the exact mechanisms are unknown. It is believed to be a combination of genetic and hormonal factors.


This article is in response to a recent topic on the HubPages forum that argued that a biological basis for homosexuality is incompatible with the theory of evolution because homosexual do not produce offspring and the homosexual "gene" would thus die out.


It's a topic that has been discussed before on several occasions, and rather than repeat the same points I made in earlier threads, I decided just to write a hub about it.


A biological basis for homosexuality is entirely compatible with the theory of evolution. Here's why:


Homosexuals as Caretakers


One of the common misunderstandings about the theory of evolution is that "the survival of the fittest" refers mainly to individual animals. The truth is, however, that in nature, the survival of a population has more value than the survival of an individual animal. Although competition among individual animals may be fierce, individuals are ultimately expendable in the grand scheme of things.


For this reason, in many animal species, you find examples of individuals who do not reproduce but instead contribute to the survival of the population as a whole, especially their own family members. In fact, scientists have even found an "altruism" gene that they believe contributes to this kind of behavior.


The most famous examples of this kind of altruisim are probably "worker" bees and ants, who are sterile, but whose work ensures the survival of their genes via their fertile sisters and brothers, the queens and drones, who go on to produce the next generation.


Among mammals, wolves provide another well known example. Wolf packs contain one breeding pair, the "alphas," and several "beta" animals of either sex. Beta males do not breed, and though beta females occasionally do, they will often neglect their own pups in favor of caring for the pups of the alpha pair, whose genes may offer greater benefit to the population in the long term.


Some scientists believe that homosexual individuals serve a similar purpose in the web of life, particularly among social animals. Homosexual individuals can contribute to the survival of their genes by assisting in the care of their brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews. In this way, families that contained a "homosexual" gene might have better survival rates in the long term, even though some individuals were evolutionary dead ends.


Homosexual or Bisexual?


Another theory about the role of homosexuality in evolution comes from the high rates of bisexuality in the animal world.


Homosexual activity has been documented in more than 1500 animal species, and in many cases, the animals involved are actively bisexual, meaning that they participate in sexual activity with members of both sexes. This creates an obvious avenue for a "bisexual" gene to spread, because animals who carry it can engage in homosexual activity while still ensuring that their genes are passed on.


However, in some individual animals the effects of the "bisexual" gene might be more pronounced (perhaps due to environmental factors, such as exposure to hormones in the mother's womb, which are believed to affect the development of human sexuality) and these animals might be exclusively homosexual.


One example of this sort of situation is the "bachelor bands" common among many social animals, including horses and lions. After leaving their herd, young males of these species join a bachelor band consisting of other juvenile males.


Homosexual activity in these bands is often rampant, but as the animals grow older, many of them will go on to become the head of their own herds, breeding with females and passing on their genes. Others will remain in the bachelor band for their entire life.


This explains how a bisexual gene might be passed on, but why would it evolve in the first place? What benefit does bisexuality offer to the survival of a population?


One argument is that bisexuality helps prevent overpopulation. Many species are known to lower their reproductive rates in response to populations stressors such as drought. Homosexual activity would provide a way for animals to release pent-up sexual energies without adding to the population or resorting to fights and other aggressive actions, thus improving the survival rate of existing animals.


Among other animals, homosexual activity may be a way of reinforcing social ties. As we discussed above, groups that cooperate for survival often do better in the long term than those who are less altruistic.


An example of this theory comes from the bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee, the closest living genetic relative of the human race, sharing approximately 98% of the same genes. Sexual activity, including kissing, rubbing genitals together, oral sex, and sexual intercourse, is one of the most important forms of social bonding among bonobos. They use sexual activity as a greeting, as a way to resolve conflicts peacefully, and as a form of post-conflict reconciliation, and they are apparently universally bisexual. In fact, some female bonobos have even been observed to choose female-on-female genital rubbing over intercourse with a male when both were offered at the same time.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale


Scientists such as Alfred Kinsey have suggested that bisexuality is also far more common among humans than is generally admitted in public. Kinsey believed that sexuality was more accurately described as a spectrum than a series of distinct categories and he proposed a 7 point scale to describe human sexuality, ranging from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual), with X representing asexual people. Kinsey's studies found that some people were found at either end of the spectrum, exclusively hetero or homosexual, and another small group lay in the exact center, but the majority lay somewhere along the continuum in between - leaning one way or the other but capable of feeling attraction to either sex depending on opportunity and circumstance.


If this is the case, it suggests that, like animals, human homosexuality is simply a more pronounced form of an opportunistic bisexuality that is common to the entire human race."====


http://hubpages.com/hub/Is-the-existence-of-homosexuality-incompatible-with-the-theory-of-evolution

 

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Earlier, less homo-fixated cultures probably allowed them to hang around to serve such a purpose, too, instead of kicking them out into that "vile and dangerous, super-promiscuous gay lifestyle" that the homophobic one wails stereotypingly about today. These home or hut boys might have often been indistinguishable from asexuals, except when one of them had to go transgender to meet requirements for same-sex marriage in those primitive communities. (I must be vaguely recollecting "Little Big Man" starring Dustin Hoffman, or something, there

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).

They would really be homosexual as a side-effect genes. And as noted, if the 'additional consequence of' offered no detriment to the species and even some advantages, then it wouldn't undermine the supposed chief reason for retaining such molecular structures, like: "Natural selection might maintain a gene that may decrease the fecundity of one sex because the same gene also increases the fecundity of the other sex. In fact, recent data shows that female maternal relatives of gay men have higher than average reproduction capacity. http://www.physorg.com/news84720662.html

There might be a specific environmental circumstance that could arise which could make a gay side-effect undesirable for the success of a species confined to that location. But the verdict is already long since in for the Earth's ecosystem in general being amenable to same-sex attraction.

 

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In harem were a man have a large number of wifes.


As far evolution : Let us put all the homosexual on an island and don't let them out . probable in 5 decade the island will become extinct of human . This will be a contribution to human evolution

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Mod note: Putting a funny emoticon at the end of that statement doesn’t cancel out the fact that it is homophobic hate speech. Please refrain from this in the future.

 

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I just don’t get this rationale. It crops up semi-regularly and there is no need to invoke convoluted caretaker hypotheses to dismiss it (although such hypotheses may have merit). The premise that homosexuality is incompatible with the ToE because homosexuals do not produce offspring is demonstrably wrong because clearly homosexual people do procreate. Many homosexual people remain ‘in the closet’ while they pursue traditional marriage and have children. Additionally, many homosexual females utilise sperm donation to produce offspring.

So as far as I can see this premise for arguing a non-biological basis for homosexuality is akin to holding your hands over your ears and shouting “nah nah nah I can’t hear you”. :shrug:

 

It is compatible with evolution (obviously or it would not exist), but not for the reasons given. It is a mutation in a gene or set of genes that actually cause greater heterosexual attraction, but it gets misplaced. Any gene that caused greater heterosexual coupling would be a great advantage to the gene pool, even if 10% of the time it "misfires".

 

Your premise seems to be that it takes a homosexual to reproduce a homosexual. I'm not seeing that. By far the vast majority of gays and lesbians are reproduced from heterosexuals who are married and NOT from a parent who is secretly in the closet. I'm not even sure being gay and reproducing heterosexually would result in guaranteed gay offspring, particularly at the 4 or 5% rate they occur in the population. Obviously the gay "genes" somehow get passed on thru the heterosexual gene pool, perhaps as the article suggested by being advantageous for fertility in the heterosexual sisters of gay men. My sister, for example, had 7 kids! That more than makes up for me not having any.

 

So are you saying that the gene may create stronger heterosexual drive in the straight siblings while misfiring as gay in just one or two? OR..does it have something to do with making the overall family more sexually attractive? Perhaps making the male members more boyishly "cute" and so more attractive to younger women? (see BieberFever..

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Awesome movie. If I remember, transgender native americans, and perhaps merely gay ones, were viewed as naturally born shamans to whom great insight and powers were attributed. Perhaps this was the case for tribes all over the world and would at least account for the shaman's natural flair for sartorial experimentation.

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No. Where did I say that? That’s not what I am saying.

The statement was made:

Ignoring for a moment the simplistic notion that there is a single “homosexual gene”, I am simply saying that statement is incorrect because homosexual people are sometimes involved in procreation in one way or another and do produce offspring.

That is the full extent of what I was trying to convey.

 

Well, whatever you were trying to say I can assure you of this: gay people as a general rule do NOT engage in heterosexual sex. No, not even just to procreate themselves. That sort of goes along with the whole "being gay" thingie. Believe me. I know. So your theory doesn't even make sense.

 

You were right the first time.

 

Obviously not. Humanity is still here, still growing and has been for many, MANY millennia.

~String

 

actually it would be fun to argue this to religious nuts

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"ok so because homosexuals exist you must be right and that there is a god who created everything, however that means homosexuals are an essential creation of god and as you argue he is a loving god he wouldnt make people just to torture them so he must love them as they are too and therefore homosexuality must be part of gods plan and good so you are against god"

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Ok, I ought to just store this somewhere so I can copypasta my argument every damn time this comes up:

Among hunter-gatherers, it's hard ot hunt and gather enough to feed everyone and the kids.
So gay adults hunt, gather, but don't reproduce, increasing the survival chances of other people's children.

And this would be a family band-they'd all be close relations. Meaning the gay person is indirectly promoting their own genes.

Thus in HG society, the gay people increase the viability of the group, and therefore promote the advancement of their own genetic material through the kids of relatives.


I think gayness became taboo when we became farmers and we needed (cheap labor) lots of children to promote group interest.

Then gayness was transformed from supportive to the group...to failure to pop out worker and warrior babies.
And it was therefore betraying the interest of the tribe.

 

If that were true, then it would also be just as advantageous for heterosexual couples to simply reproduce less, but everything is geared towards the other direction.

 

hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists are two different things-

HG's barely stay in positive caloric balance, and rarely reproduce past repalcement rate. Because babies require nursing for a long time.
Hunter-gatherers used to universally practice infanticide (according to my anthropology professor).
Sometimes, keeping and nursing an infant would kill both infant and mother if attempted.


Farmers produce a lot more calories, they burn a lot more too, they need a lot more hands.

 

But hunter-gatherers, since their food supply was uncertain, and predators and disease took most infants, needed a higher reproduction rate just to break even.

 

So people who preferred a gay life but due to societal prejudices took on a 'normal' hetero family role for many years, when they finally came out, they were lying? Your claim assumes that a person is sure of their preferences from the start AND can pursue them without any backlash. Which isn't true at all.

 

The genetic basis for gay behavior is an interesting paradox, since it disproves a basic assumption of Darwinian evolution. Darwin has the males competing for reproductive rights. This allows selective advantage to breed forward.

Gays have little incentive to win the breeding battles, since the reward/goal of the entire process is breeding with a female, which is not within their nature. This should cause gays to gradually be removed from the gene pool, since by their very nature, they lack the selective advantage of a strong desire for the final female reward.

As an analogy, we will start with two groups of 10 people. The challenge is you have to jump off a bridge into the water to receive the reward. The reward for the first gropu is $1M. This reward might get many past their fear, doing what they never thought they might do; jump. For the second group, the reward is a half eaten bologna sandwich with too much mustard. Which group will have more jumpers?

This difference in natural incentive should genetically remove the gays from the gene pool, over time, since the genes with the most incentive will be thise most likely to be forwarded a la Darwin.

The observation that there is always 5-12 percent gay, even without the Darwian breeding selective advantage, seems to imply that gay is a behavior modification that is less genetic based, but more based on the semi-conscious induction of different brain firmware.

As an analogy, there are many people who loves computers and will pursue education, so they can do this for a living. Computers have only been around for a few generations, so this computer desire can't be due to genetics, unless genes can change that fast for a large group of people. This would violate other science premises. One explanation for this temporal incentive to pursue computers with almost instinctive joy needs to be post brain modification after exposure to computers. It has to do with firmware animation and its programming. Or Darwinan is wrong?

 

I did explain how evolution can explain the existence of gay people, that is if being gay is the result of a mutation in a gene that enhances heterosexual coupling, which is an advantage. This means that it will be retained in the gene pool regardless of the mutations if it is on average more effective in leading to reproduction in the entire pool compared to it's absence.