What's the purpose of homosexuality in humans?

[Virge]

I always suspected mom made me gay. To get back at my overly macho dad, if nothing else.

Seriously though, "many stresses" "could lead" doesn't give us much to go on in terms of scientifically verifiable hypotheses

Mike they have tracked the stress factor in wrasses and clownfish by removing males to monitor the transformation of females into males. They've removed queen mole rats to monitor the same hormonal changes in them as in saltwater wrasses and clownfish... now put 2 species of mole rats, beavers, wolves, many freshwater fish in the cichlid family, at least five species of lizards, plus MANY others that undergo changes due to hormones that repress or redirect the urge to breed and toss in human homosexuality and it fits right in... and fills the same purpose as all the others.

[bilkiba]

I always thought the purpose was to make the species fab. :tongue:

Lol, I kid. I figured, after studying homosexuality in other social animals (such as lions) that we kind of have it for the same reasons, 1) population control (i.e. not having too many kids), and 2) why the hell not?

[Virge]

I always thought the purpose was to make the species fab. :tongue:

Lol, I kid. I figured, after studying homosexuality in other social animals (such as lions) that we kind of have it for the same reasons, 1) population control (i.e. not having too many kids), and 2) why the hell not?

That's close.
The primary reason has to be preservation of the family gene line and secondly the species.... Population control was never an issue before the early 1800s when men learned there was a relationship between sanitation and half the bad diseases that had been keeping population in check before then.

Population control is as recent to human history as Justin Beiber is to the history of music.

[MikeW]

Mike they have tracked the stress factor in wrasses and clownfish by removing males to monitor the transformation of females into males. They've removed queen mole rats to monitor the same hormonal changes in them as in saltwater wrasses and clownfish... now put 2 species of mole rats, beavers, wolves, many freshwater fish in the cichlid family, at least five species of lizards, plus MANY others that undergo changes due to hormones that repress or redirect the urge to breed and toss in human homosexuality and it fits right in... and fills the same purpose as all the others.

I acknowledged in my first post that yours is a reasonable and interesting hypothesis. My question is, is it testable?

I'd like to throw into this discussion the following diagram:



For the first 200,000 years of human habitation, global population remained below (ETA *well* below) 1 billion. However, it has quadrupled in my lifetime alone. This is a staggering historical anomaly due in large measure to the successful application of science to agriculture and many other things. However, it should also be evident that population growth of this magnitude is unsustainable in a closed ecological system with limited resources. Thus, population growth now threatens species survival as it never has before. This would suggest significant stress in the global population due to competition for resources which, if your hypothesis is correct, should be leading to increased birthing of 'non breeders'. I've yet to see any research suggesting that homosexuality is increasing at a rate disproportionate to the population. Yet as we see, if there were ever a 'survival need' for 'non breeders' (an assumption I question), now would certainly be it.

How do you see this in light of your hypothesis?

[Aike]

... perhaps we're looking TOO hard into this. Isn't it pretty well known that BC, the Ancient Greeks/Pagans were to a greater degree at least bi, up until the Christian brain washing took over convincing us all that same sex relations are a forbidden sin?

The terms we use to designate sexual orientation came into being quite late and the way we use them would be strange to people living in pre-modern eras. In modern day use the word "homosexual" is usually used to refer to something you are rather than something you do whereas the opposite was the case only a few centuries ago. In this light it seems quite strange to me to say that in Ancient Greece most people were "bisexual" since that's definitely not how they understood themselves. But then again, one can also argue that bisexuality always existed and it's only due to a scientific understanding of sexuality that it has been "discovered". But that's another issue.

[Virge]

I acknowledged in my first post that yours is a reasonable and interesting hypothesis. My question is, is it testable?

I'd like to throw into this discussion the following diagram:



For the first 200,000 years of human habitation, global population remained below (ETA *well* below) 1 billion. However, it has quadrupled in my lifetime alone. This is a staggering historical anomaly due in large measure to the successful application of science to agriculture and many other things. However, it should also be evident that population growth of this magnitude is unsustainable in a closed ecological system with limited resources. Thus, population growth now threatens species survival as it never has before. This would suggest significant stress in the global population due to competition for resources which, if your hypothesis is correct, should be leading to increased birthing of 'non breeders'. I've yet to see any research suggesting that homosexuality is increasing at a rate disproportionate to the population. Yet as we see, if there were ever a 'survival need' for 'non breeders' (an assumption I question), now would certainly be it.

How do you see this in light of your hypothesis?

I cannot type with a lab face under each hand staring up with wagging tails asking me to go running ...Lemme go play daddy dawg and I'll be back

[swalter]

Those are genetic traits. Homosexuality is not. Comparing apples to shoe boxes there.

You don't believe sexual orientation is a trait based in genetics and epigenetics? I'm pretty sure the science supports genetic and epigenetic factors as the origin of sexual orientation.

If you don't subscribe to that, what is your belief on the origin of homosexuality in humans? Keep in mind, your solution also has to account for homosexuality and same - sex pair bonding in the more than 2000 species, including every mammal, that exhibits homosexuality.

[Borg69]

The terms we use to designate sexual orientation came into being quite late and the way we use them would be strange to people living in pre-modern eras. In modern day use the word "homosexual" is usually used to refer to something you are rather than something you do whereas the opposite was the case only a few centuries ago. In this light it seems quite strange to me to say that in Ancient Greece most people were "bisexual" since that's definitely not how they understood themselves. But then again, one can also argue that bisexuality always existed and it's only due to a scientific understanding of sexuality that it has been "discovered". But that's another issue.

I can only describe it by today's vocabulary... back then, sex was recreational with whomever willing, and also used for reproduction. There wasn't the stigma of same sex coupling there is now. I'm sure it even went much deeper than that too (no pun) as often in the animal kingdom males will mount males to show dominance. I'm sure humans did that as well, too.

[Cuddly]

I don't get it.

How does homosexual offspring preserve genes? Their programming is to not produce offspring and thus not carry on the genes. I totally get that it could be hormonal, but I still don't see why.

And population control happens by default as there's only so many mouthes to feed and (if you have predators above you in the food chain, more you = more food for them = more of them = less of you = less of them.

Oh and one reason why this isn't that heavily researched is that those of us (homos) who care about it, also don't really want to know. Maybe knowing why would lower our worth? Maybe it would inspire the creation of a cure and we'd go extinct. If it is entirely hormonal (which makes sense as gay genes wouldn't be carried on) it should be reasonably doable to prevent it......... I don't like this road. I don't want to know. One of the few things I don't want to know.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Another problem here is you're *assuming* that homosexuals *do not breed*. I don't think history bares out this premise. To my anthropological knowledge, there is no 'unattained by western civilization' tribe that had 'non breeding adults', let alone exclusively given 'child rearing' responsibilities. (There certainly *have been* studies of unsullied tribal peoples who engage in socially sanctioned homosexual acts but this in no way related to our concept of 'sexual orientation').

This also begs the whole question of sexual orientation as it is understood and practice by humans outside our social (western) history.

I'm not talking about Western History - in fact I wasn't even bothering with history, I was bothering with pre-history. So that is before 7000 years ago and further back.

And I never said gays can't procreate, however given their proclivities to not do it the old fashion way (and unless I'm mistaken prehistoric man did not have turkey basters), they would most likely not have bothered with having sex for the purpose of having children, not when there are plenty of children already.

Today's gays want children and resort to all manner of things to become parents. Now what if their tribe was such where everyone shared the duties and joys of child rearing? Would gays need to procreate to satisfy the biological clock ticking away? or would satisfaction of being part of the social group that insures the survival of our brother and sister's DNA (which is our DNA) be sufficient to meet the needs of that drive to insure the survival of the DNA?

And I did not say that gays were exclusively raising children. They were working adults in the tribe, since they didn't have off spring to feed, then any game/forage they brought into camp was surely split amongst the many hungry mouths.

More working adults to meet the needs of the surviving children.

I forget who said it, but there is a bit of truth in the adage it takes a village to raise a child.

While infant mortality was high, the risk of having too many children who needed care was also pretty high. Finding a balance of enough babies being born to offset high infant mortality and having sufficient number of working adults to meet the needs of the whole tribe is nicely satisfied with today's understanding of high fertility women having a much higher tendency of having gay male children.




This is all before settlement and civilization. Once settling down started happening a lot of insane ideas came to people's head, such as ownership of the land, and with that came methods and 'social morality codes' that kept people owning property while others game to be pawns in the games of war-craft and other assorted ugliness to maintain a death grip on land.

Prior to settlement, tribes wandered, few actually met and fought over stuff. As soon as humans took to tilling soils and building soils the incidence of war, rape, pillage, theft and murder sky rocketed. A lot of new 'moral codes' came into being in order to offset the disadvantages of civilization, including throwing the old tribal system out the window, which means gays and lesbians got thrown under the bus.

Evolution and all things that happen and come about is all about the survival of the DNA.

That is the root cause for just about any feature of a species. Humans are altruistic animals, altruism does not fit self survival, but does fit social survival. As such its easy to predict that humans have many traits which are of social survival, thus if we have something that we can't fit into individual survival of the DNA, then we need to look at survival of the tribe's DNA.

There is a site that touches on this potential here:

Homosexual behavior in early human societies may be shown to conform to Hamilton’s Rule. If the reproductive fitness of one individual is sacrificed (say from four offspring to nil) and the surviving offspring of 20 related others is increased from four to five from improved hunting return and nutrition, then there is clearly increased inclusive fitness in that individual’s group.

Source: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011...early-man/

That site also states other social uses for homosexuality, however I view that more or less as bisexuality and not 'true' homosexuality, as in two guys (or two gals) setting up house and becoming a couple.

Civilization as a whole has done severe damage to humanity. The process of going from nomadic hunter gather to farmer lead to humanity getting shorter and sicker in a couple generations. It also lead to severe out breaks of violence between peoples.

Power over the masses, priests using religion as a weapon, the dawn of Monotheism, the patriarchal slant (Goddess becoming second then third then totally non-existent to a male God) - ll of these are symptoms of how the act of forming civilization damaged humans and broke them out of their more natural way of living, thus changing the social mores and rules that tribes would have had and their needs before the advent of settlements.

Anything from history is tainted with civilizations particular unnatural deviation from the species norm. Since the species is 195,000 years old and civilization is about 10,000 years old we can't just rely on that short history with civilization to answer why humans are as they are, we have to take into account the natural environment and the 185 thousand years, plus all of the millions upon millions of years that humans evolved from rodent sized mammals after the Dinosaurs gave up the throne.