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Homosexuality

Grim said:
Uhm, would you be saying then that evolution and genetics play no role in human society. We are all human, I agree but you can't ignore things like genetics and evolution. Everyone has differences and genetics play a big role in those differences otherwise we would all be the same. Therefore the IS such as thing gay, straight, black, white, tall, short, fat, skinny and a million other factors that make us different from another.

And if you try to avoid the obvious then you are the one walking with the blinders on.

I in no way have anything against gays or anyone of a different race, but you can't say that we are all the same. It's just a liberal PC bullshit that they are trying to feed you now. We need to learn to embrace other people's differences rather than saying that we are all the same.
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Yes...you are different.

However, on a more simple level such as that of the view of the world through the eyes of a child, we are all the same.

My point is this, which is lost upon most of you, we are all human beings spending time together in this thing we call "life". Now, you can spend your time categorizing and evaluating people based upon superficial characteristics such as skin color, hair color, height or sexual preference. If you feel that this is your "station" in life, feel free to do so. However, when the time comes, and it surely will, when you are spending your last few moments on this rock and you look back on your life and wish that you had those few moments back, what would they be?
 
Everyone, please, don't take my use of the term "flaw" so personally. I don't mean it in that way at all.

I mean it more as an evolutionary flaw. The same sort of flaw that someone with a disorder like morton's toe suffers from. Something that is against the basic logic of reproduction, but still exists. I don't think anyone is meaning to say that homosexuals are worthless, or somehow inferior to hetrosexuals. I see someone who has the potentional to get cancer as flawed. I mean it merely as a matter-of-fact sort of way, not that it's a personal mistake, and that someone should be condemned for it.

I have small hands for an example. Many normal items (videogame controls and whatnot) don't fit my hands properly, which i view as a flaw. Certiantly not my fault, nor do i feel bad for it. Sure, it'd be nice to have bigger hands, but i don't, and i've gotten used to it.
 
^ I think you're just butting up against the popular idea that "all men are created equal" (obviously, not true), and the other popular idea "people (when the person is me or someone I care about) are perfect the way they are" (also, obiously, not true)

but, good luck selling it...
 
Me? Oh no, certaintly not.

I do believe hetrosexuality is a perferable trait. Sorry guys/gals, it's just simply true. Homosexuality is certaintly an unfavorable trait to have. I'm personally thankful for the fact that i'm not a homosexual. However, the distinction between homosexality being a un-ideal thing, and discriminating people based upon it are two very, very different things, which is where i'm attempting to draw the line.

I have sympathy for homosexuals (and even more so for transgender people) because they will undoubtly suffer from it. They're limited to a smaller pool of potentional lovers, and the concept of a family is somewhat distorted, which can lead to frusterating and confusing situations for children. However, at the same time, i have many gay and lesbian friends and wouldn't think of them any differently if they were hetrosexual.
 
Unfavourable? Who says so?Anyway.
Basically i want to explain my earlier point which was complete bullshit(was on the net too long i think that fucked up my brain) as it turns out, the thing about 'created to be gay'was trying to counter zorns argument about evolution, but basically that's not my truthful opinion obviously.
Homosexuality is not a flaw or a mistake in evolution(though religion would have you believe otherwise) but it is purely down to your surroundings and certain things you've gone through in life etc, it is not a mistake, it is something that has come about due to our surroundings and personalities as someone said before. People who are gay can't help it, they're just being who they're are, that IMO is no mistake or flaw as zorn and ghettotastic_bong put it.
 
Some people just can't understand the ideas behind evolution/darwinism, I think perhaps it should be just left there.
 
It's only a "flaw" in an evolutionary sense. Evolutionarily, the "purpose" of an organism is to propagate its genes... in that sense, any characteristic which impedes successful baby-making would be a flaw.
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As just a thought with the whole evolutionary perspective. It doesn't only theorize that you want the best for YOUR children or you work hardest to pass on your genes through YOUR children. Technically, the bonds of kinship (and thus genes) work throughout families as well, so having an uncle or aunt that do not have their own children would probably leave more time for them to care for the neice or nephew in the family. Thus they would be helping (in a way) to pass on some similar portion of their genes. In a world as busy and crazy as ours, with less and less time for children as compared to work lives and obligations, this might ensure a better chance for that child.

Another point....evolution doesn't predict what will work today, but what worked years and years ago. We've undergone a tremendous cultural change in the ideas of what a father and mother are, and have seen an increase in adoption rates and the understanding that children do not have to be born to someone to be their children. Maybe this is leading to less of a push to pass on your genes and more of a push to pass on your values, your behaviors, and your actions---which are probably more cultural than they are genetic.
 
^^^^Very very good point!

Even with animals, when dogs or cats get sick, the owner does all he/she can to make sure they live longer. Obviously the same goes for humans.

Although in my previous post (page 2 I think) I said that most homosexuals really do want to be "normal", in the first stage of discovering homosexuality, most try to deny it at some point in their lives. My dad was telling me about one of his pastor/minister friends that was homosexual but through extensive therapy has become straight again, and now has a wife and kids. I just want to know if he is truly happy, because to me, doing that would just make you bury the feelings or find some way of denying it.

Do you guys think therapy is in need for homosexuals? I sure as hell wouldn't go, because thats treated like a psychological problem. Its not. Homosexuality is not a behavior, it just IS. I know if I tried to reverse years and years of looking at women thinking "She's attractive", well, it just wouldn't work. Having sympathy doesn't help the situation anymore either. We aren't unhappy people, its the folks with some of the opinions on here that make us unhappy. Yes, we are more susceptible to danger (getting beat up etc) but with transsexuals even, when the process is all done, they are so happy and feel more like themselves (it sounds weird but its true) I'm friends with a female to male transsexual and he is SO much better mentally since all of the changes.

Concept of family? Even on Sesame Street we are taught that a family has countless possibilities. Single mother, single father, uncle and aunt, grandparents, ADOPTION, and the list goes on. The nuclear family ideal died out years ago with the Cleavers. Gay couples can raise a child just as well as a straight couple, the whole idea of needing a mother/father role is all in religion. The only thing that a kid needs is love, and acceptance. A safe place to come home to at night, and where they feel they are taken care of.

I'm not even getting into the evolution thing anymore.
 
Saying that darwinism doesn't apply to humans anymore really just misses the point completely in many ways.

Darwinism is in part a tautology, on the surface is says animals which are the fittest have the most children, and hence that fitness is passed on. And fitness is defined by how many children they can have. i.e. those that have the most children have the most children. But what it is really saying, is that -on average- the fittest in -their environment- have the most children, where fitness is defined by a -propensity- to have the most children.

In our example, a human who can survive to adulthood and have children, is still selected for. i.e. gay people are still selected against.

Moreover, most animals, phylogenically speaking, go through a perioid of development somnolescence, where they are very well adapted for the environment, and don't go through many changes. We are in that phase now, which unlike the common thought, isn't bad, but actaully allows us to build up a massive array of mutations with no purpose, which are either nutral, or only slightly harmful.

For example, the disease hemochromatosis. Right now, untreated with a classic western diet, this disease could be fatal. Far more iron absorption than normal leads to iron deposits throughout the body. But shift forward several thousand years, imagine a world with very little nutrional iron sources. Now all of a sudden, this disease becomes a major advantage.
 
there is not a 'single' gene responsible for homosexuality. Two very strait parents could easily pass on the 'homosexuality phenotype'. this phenotype is in no way "not selected for". in fact, as i said before, being kind of gay *IMPROVES* one's chance of getting laid (on average).

and, every one pay attention,

survival of the fittest is not a *LAW*

it is an average
and it still holds true with humans.
think about it, if your ugly, you have less chance of scoring than if you're hot. survival of the fittest.period.
 
And fitness is defined by how many children they can have.
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That isn't true at all. It's passing genes along. That doesn't mean having more children in all situations. You might have one child but that child is more assured of making it all the way to maturity and thus an age of procreation. According to evolution that's more important than having 10 children of which none live to have children of their own.
 
Ahh don't be pedantic... and actually no. In terms of individual fitness it depends on your surviving to have children. Then it becomes a matter of the children, and whether they are fit, which of course depends on your childrens genes, which are usually a mix of the individual and the mate. It is obvious that this is the case when you consider random mutations.

You can then move on to consider community fitness, which helps you consider things like communal animals (ants being the prime example), where individual fitness is given up, in the service of the communal fitness.
 
There is another way to look at this issue. How about this- the human race is doing so well in terms of advancement and numbers that it can afford to have some of its population not contribute to producing more numbers. Therefore having a significant proportion of the population being homosexual (or just choosing to not have kids) is an indicator that the human race is prospering with the growth of technology and not just relying on producing as many offspring as possible- like insects or fish etc.
 
No mechanism as such. Life spans have increased, death rates have decreased with the advancement of modern technology. There is no need now for the whole population to reproduce- the gene pool is pretty big and varied now. This is probably really far fetched but maybe being homosexual is sort of a means of population control.
 
Another point....evolution doesn't predict what will work today, but what worked years and years ago. We've undergone a tremendous cultural change in the ideas of what a father and mother are, and have seen an increase in adoption rates and the understanding that children do not have to be born to someone to be their children. Maybe this is leading to less of a push to pass on your genes and more of a push to pass on your values, your behaviors, and your actions---which are probably more cultural than they are genetic.
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I think the key point is that evolution works very slowly... A typical timescale might be ~100,000 years. The timespan since the dawn of history, since the beginning of human civilization, is tiny in comparison. So we're essentially the same as Stone Age humans in genetic terms... We're still adapted to a tribal, hunter-gatherer lifestyle of a world very different than today's.

So I don't think there have been any genetic changes making homsexuality, adoption, etc more appealing since then. Certainly it hasn't developed as a "population control" mechanism -- the time since population control has been an issue is barely an eyeblink. But certainly, plenty of things which might have been helpful to us back in the EEA ("environment of evolutionary adaptation") are useless or harmful to us now.

Ahh don't be pedantic... and actually no. In terms of individual fitness it depends on your surviving to have children. Then it becomes a matter of the children, and whether they are fit, which of course depends on your childrens genes, which are usually a mix of the individual and the mate.
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Your child shares half your genes, but your niece shares, what, about a quarter. So an adaption that causes you to sacrifice future children for a significantly larger number of future nieces will be worthwhile. Thus you get kin selection -- animals will often sacrifice themselves not only for their offspring but for close-enough relatives.
 
Yeah, whether or not an adult will or wont sacrifice itself for its young is a really interesting part of zoology and evolutionary science. With mammals, you can do a really nice simple calculation that basically says, How many young will an adult have multiplied by the chance that the young will survive to have offspring of its own. if that is more than 1 (or is it 2?) then an adult doesn't sacrifice itself.
 
Being gay myself, I guess I really do know what I am talking about. From how I see it, I was pre-determined to be gay, I had a strong father figure, was never abused and came from a loving family, so it's definitely not environmental.

In a study of mice, when two male mice were put into a cage together for lengthy periods of time, one of the mice would actually become more feminine and would take the female sexual role when the mice started mating, obviously trying to continue their breeding. The same was true for two female mice put together, one would start acting in a masculine way and start taking a male role in mating with the other mouse.

There are billions of sperm in each ejaculation and of course there is going to be a percentage of those which when fertilising the egg will have a body of male/female and have the sexual urges towards that same gender. So it is kind of like a mutation, but no more so than a person who has red hair. or is short, or with green eyes.

I was born this way...I didn't make a choice. I grew up in a town of 100 people, and if I had a choice then...I would have been straight, but now I am happy I went with my heart and now I am a much more happier content person.
=D =D
 
Any straight person who claims that homosexuality is 'unnatural', and uses this as a criticism, deserves to be stripped naked and thrown into the nearest jungle. See how long they last.

The point is that just about everything involved in modern life is unnatural from wearing clothes to buying food at mcdonalds to driving cars, etc. etc.

Bearing this in mind is seems slightly redundant to use the argument that homosexuality is 'unnatural' as a reason against it.

If the human population of the earth ever drops dangerously low then we can start our scientifically justifiable campaign against homosexuals (bisexuality is allowed). Since i've been keeping count i'll let you know when this happens...
 
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