[FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Jan 10 11:14:46 EST 2022
On 1/10/22 8:56 AM, glen wrote:
> Right. I hope that's the case, not merely that some of us are more
> plastic, but that perhaps any of us could even practice being more
> plastic. But that's just hope ... hope can be debilitating.
I recently listened to Krista Tippet's interview with Desmond Tutu circa
2010 and he made an important distinction between "optimism" and
"hope". I wonder how much folks here make their own distinction and if
one is more prone to debilitation than the other?
>
> On 1/10/22 07:50, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> I meant that some people are genetically set up to be more plastic
>> and dynamic than others, and one way this manifests itself is in
>> sexual preference. If one finds a genetic signature for
>> homosexuality, it could just be the deeper thing.
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of glen
>> <gepropella at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Monday, January 10, 2022 8:25 AM
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com <friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
>> One of the themes I've seen talks about a slight correlation between
>> the presence of homosexuality in a family with female fecundity
>> (counter intuitive to those who talk about homosexuals having
>> children). Another theme is that it's largely epigenetic; I suppose a
>> slightly deeper in mechanism than Jochen's hormonal proposition.
>>
>> Both of those appeal to my sense that evolution doesn't separate
>> lineage from ontogeny. There's no crisp line between organism and
>> family, no crisp line between families, species, generations, or
>> anything else, which approaches SteveS' third point. The selection is
>> as "fractal" as the crinkly space in which it arises.
>>
>> I wish I were as libertarian as Marcus in this context, where we're
>> all ideally plastic and dynamic. But my sense is not only that
>> historicity and accumulation outstrip any plasticity, at least by our
>> mid 30s or so, but also that there's no place for will or intention
>> in most feelings of orientation. It seems people often feel fated or
>> even trapped by their orientation. If it's plastic at all, its
>> trajectory is at least chaotic, not amenable to reverse engineering.
>> But, as Jochen points out, we're much less likely to engage in every
>> speculation we could because it's such a sensitive topic.
>>
>> Thanks for all the ideas.
>>
>> On 1/9/22 08:30, Steve Smith wrote:
>>> A couple of things as yet not obviously (to me) introduced into this
>>> discussion:
>>>
>>> 1) Survival of the Fittest might better be Legacy Survival of
>>> the Fittest. Evolution depends on successful *reproduction* and in
>>> fact, a string of successful reproductions. I have a number of
>>> childless friends who came from parents with large families... but
>>> who only had 2 or fewer siblings themselves and have few if any
>>> nieces and nephews. Their grandparent's "fecundity" has officially
>>> petered out. I'm not saying this is a good nor a bad thing, just a
>>> break in the "survival of the fittest" and an illustration that
>>> simply being good at spawning lots of children isn't enough... they
>>> have to survive and then reproduce themselves, rinse, repeat.
>>>
>>> 2) Heredity/Evolotion 101 in college made the point that the
>>> "selfish" gene for men suggests that one's nieces and nephews by a
>>> maternal sister are (closer to) guaranteed to share 1/4 of his genes
>>> than the (best case) 1/2 for his own (presumed) children (worst
>>> case 0%). The same (almost) logic applies to women who are
>>> childless (for whatever reason)... their sister's children are a
>>> genetic legacy for them. Entirely anecdotally, many of the
>>> (childless) gay men and women I know are pretty good aunts and
>>> uncles... (though this can be explained many ways).
>>>
>>> 3) And of course, the object of heredity has shifted from the
>>> Gene to something much larger, more fuzzy, and perhaps (much) more
>>> interesting? What *cultural* traits might be positively correlated
>>> with being homosexual or more aptly ambi/bi/pan/poly sexual? It
>>> is no longer exclusively the case that being gay deals you out of
>>> being a parent (raising adopted children, en-vivo, en-vitro
>>> fertilization, etc), so one's contribution can be to a continued
>>> *cultural* or *memetic* legacy of a "way of being" which is very
>>> Lamarckian.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 1/9/22 3:15 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
>>>> This topic is a minefield, because it is related like the
>>>> controversial "race" term to the personal identify. Black people
>>>> for instance score higher in 100m or 200m runs than white people as
>>>> the data clearly shows, which means their genes somehow must give
>>>> them more power for this particular competition. Still all people
>>>> belong to the same race. As you know this topic is very
>>>> controversial and precarious. For sex it is similar.
>>>>
>>>> There are genes for the two major sex hormones, estrogen for women
>>>> and testosterone for men. Males have one X and Y chromosome,
>>>> females have two X chromosomes. Therefore there are clearly genetic
>>>> differences between men and women.
>>>>
>>>> Just how girls who are subject to estrogen develop an affection for
>>>> boys is unclear. The same for boys who are subject to testosterone
>>>> in their development. My hypothesis is that the mechanism works
>>>> like "develop an affection for those who look the same but
>>>> different" during the time the sex hormones start to work. Once
>>>> they have a preference, addiction mechanisms kick in which tell the
>>>> individuals to do more of that which they like. Something like that
>>>> where the target of affection is path dependent and not completely
>>>> hardwired.
>>>>
>>>> In general I would say that homosexuality is a byproduct of the
>>>> mating process. This would explain why homosexuality continues to
>>>> exist in evolutionary systems although these individuals have less
>>>> or no offspring. Like coal power plants which produce CO2 and
>>>> nuclear power plants which produce nuclear waste, the mating
>>>> process produces losers who lost for whatever reason in the
>>>> competition for mates and have no offspring. Among those some may
>>>> pick a mate of the same sex, because the sex drive is hard to
>>>> ignore and not completely hardwired.
>>>>
>>>> This is just my rough idea how it could work in principle. It can
>>>> be wrong and it is a delicate topic. There are many books about the
>>>> sociologal and psychological aspects of it. In the library I
>>>> usually ignore them because it is not a topic I am especially
>>>> interested in. Therefore my knowledge is incomplete in this area,
>>>> and someone else here can probably explain it better.
>>>>
>>>> -J.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -------- Original message --------
>>>> From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com
>>>> Date: 1/9/22 01:39 (GMT+01:00)
>>>> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
>>>> <friam at redfish.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
>>>>
>>>> Well, first things first. Is there any evidence for a genetic
>>>> basis for homosexuality. You can, of course, have a trait that it
>>>> is chromosomally determined (if not genetically so) and still not
>>>> heritable. Sex, for instance. Sex is not heritable.
>>>>
>>>> My assumption has always been that homosexuality might be influence
>>>> by innate factors, but not be heritable.
>>>>
>>>> I haven’t read up on that subject for 2 decades.
>>>>
>>>> Anybody know any facts?
>>>>
>>>> n
>>>>
>>>> Nick Thompson
>>>>
>>>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>>> <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>>
>>>>
>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>>> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>>>> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>>> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Marcus
>>>> Daniels
>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 8, 2022 5:57 PM
>>>> *To:* FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
>>>>
>>>> It seems like such a dumb question to ask. Why should any
>>>> preference have a genetic basis? How about look for a gene that
>>>> encodes a preference for plush carpeting or a preference for
>>>> Flamenco music? And what about those men that like short women?!
>>>> Maybe a man is kind of like a tall woman, on average? And why
>>>> would anyone expect that it would be bimodal? If it were what
>>>> would that tell us? One could imagine homosexuality is just one
>>>> manifestation of cognitive or emotional flexibility. That by
>>>> itself would explain why it is enduring, because those properties
>>>> would give a person an advantage over less flexible people. Some
>>>> fraction of the people with that property have heterosexual or
>>>> bisexual relationships, and they reproduce and raise children that
>>>> thrive. The rigid (heterosexual) types in comparison are prone to
>>>> making the same kind of mistakes over and over and their children
>>>> suffer for it.
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of ⛧glen
>>>> <gepropella at gmail.com>
>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 8, 2022 4:13 PM
>>>> *To:* FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
>>>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
>>>>
>>>> I'm in an ongoing argument with a gay friend about how tortured
>>>> Darwinian arguments are in accounting for homosexuality. He claims
>>>> they're VERY torturous. I'm inclined toward the first mentioned
>>>> here: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26089486
>>>> <https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26089486>
>>>>
>>>> But, were group selection and/or cultural evolution a thing, then
>>>> my friend would be more right. Anyone here have a strong opinion?
>>>>
>>
>> --
>> glen
>> Theorem 3. There exists a double master function.
>>
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