[FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
thompnickson2 at gmail.com
thompnickson2 at gmail.com
Thu Jan 13 21:49:39 EST 2022
Eric,
Couldn’t this also be part of a parcel of adaptations present in mothers to call an audible when her offspring are still in utero?
n
Nick Thompson
<mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
<https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 7:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
Frank,
Sexual orientation being associated with hormonal concentrations during pregnancy would be a mark in favor of the spandrel arguement: There are important, dynamic, developmental processes that lead to sexual-attraction biases. Those processes are perturbed by various environmental factors, but have a strong degree of equifinality regarding various parts of the process. Those perterbations, plus the corrective mechanisms, sometimes leads to homosexuality, bisexuality, and all sorts of other things. Even though that sometimes happens, so far the selective forces have found it better to sometimes do that than to try to mess with the developmental processes enough to avoid ever having such outcomes. So, it's a thing that happens sometimes, and it doesn't really affect selection as much as one might think. It is a pretty neutral outcome that sometimes happens at the intersection of some really important processes.
On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:21 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com> > wrote:
What about the evidence that sexual orientation may be associated with testosterone or estrogen concentrations in the womb during pregnancy. These may interact with unspecified genetic factors.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296090/
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
On Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 7:50 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:
You’re probably right.
Perhaps bonobo sexuality is the primitive state.
“Bub”
Nick Thompson
<mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
<https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 8:33 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
Nick,
No, no, no... you have the pedagogical point backwards... They are starting with some weird view that homosexuals are people who are absolutely exclusively sleeping with members of the same sex. You can't start from that and be like "Yeah, but once you're in the harem, there you are! Am I right!" Forget that fact that a huge number of gay men you and I know were at one point married and have kids, that's no the student's starting point (or at least it wasn't 20 years ago). If you start with the harems, then they will knee jerk "That's not real homosexuality, that's not what I'm talking about." To avoid that knee-jerk, you need to start by pointing out that even if their naive take on the phenomenon is correct, it still might not be that hard to explain evolutionarily.
Once they are reminded that it's pretty easy math to have helpful-for-kin traits selected for, then you can offer the intermediary spandrel/exaptation option which gets them thinking that maybe there might be more to the discussion than they originally thought, and THEN you can point out that their initial premises might also just be complete garbage.
Also, re Marcus's take: I think that would be a variation of the spandrel/exaptation explanation..... Look, bub, it's pretty important to get natural selection going that people want to have sex. So you need a very reliable method of creating attraction, and you generally want it to be men attracted to women and women attracted to men. But the first part, the "attracted to someone" part is probably far more important than the "exactly who are you attracted to" part. As such, it's really not all that surprising to find men attracted to men and women attracted to women, and it's not clear that any special explanation beyond that is needed.
On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 3:32 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:
Eric,
I think this an excellent capper to an excellent discussion. I wish somebody would scrape it, perhaps edit to make it more readable, and file it somewhere amongst Friam’s Greatest Hits. Somewhere, somebody should have reminded us that GenesFur X are really just genes that, in some devious say or other, make X more likely. Is a genefur grooming a gene for maintaining group resistance to parasites, a gene for, building social relationships or both. If you asked the gene, it would say, “I really don’t care.”
Still, I might divide things up a bit differently.
1. Homosexuality benefits the homosexual. By hanging around the harem, ostensibly interested only in sex with the haremmor, he has unfettered access to the haremmees. Given the high reproductive rate of haremmees, he only has to “slip up” a couple of times to be in good shape, reproductively. This assumes that the haremmers have pretty much locked up the females in the group. Game theorists call this the sneaky fucker strategy.
2. Group Selection Arguments: Group level adaptations could be triggered facultatively when infant and juvenile individuals receive cues that their particular individual future reproductive environment is bleak.
a. Homosexuality benefits the Parents of the homosexual. This is the kinselection argument laid out by Eric, with its group selection element made explicate. Homosexuals assist in the reproduction of their siblings. Here the group is the relatively efficient offspring- group of gene-bearing parents.
b. Homosexuality benefits the small group of which the homosexual’s family is part. Groups with one or more strongly bonded males are more productive of offspring than groups without. Think Slime molds.
I wasn’t sure that erics #3 isn’t so much an alternative as the cultural level description of the consequences of the others.
N
Nick Thompson
<mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
<https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 12:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gene complex for homosexuality
Re potential evolutionary explanations for homosexuality: They really don't have to be very convoluted at all.
I prepared a worksheet for a class 15 or so years ago, after a bunch of students starting trying use homosexuality as proof that evolution couldn't explain (any) behavior. I'd rather just link to the blog... but to make things easier for other's, I'll also copy-paste below: Fixing Psychology: Evolution and Homosexuality <https://fixingpsychology.blogspot.com/2012/03/evolution-and-homosexuality.html>
====================
Evolution and Homosexuality
Evolutionary theorists could potentially explain homosexuality using three distinct methods. The first two take the modern notion of homosexuality at face value, the third questions it.
1. Explain homosexuality as a benefit in and of itself.
The most straightforward way to explain the presence of any trait using evolutionary logic is to tell a story about how individuals with that trait reproduce their genes better than those without the trait. In the case of exclusive homosexuality, that is difficult, because homosexuals do not reproduce. However, it is still possible.
For example, a costly traits may be so helpful to your relatives (i.e., your kin) that it more than makes up for the cost you pay. This is called “kin selection”. Your children will share 50% of your genes, so we can give them a value of .5 in terms of your reproduction. A full sibling’s children share 25% of your genes, so we can give them a value of .25. That means that if you posses a trait that makes you have one less child on average (-.5), but you get three more nephews or nieces in exchange (+.75), natural selection will favor that trait (= .25). On average, the next generation will have more of your genes by virtue of your possessing a trait that makes you have fewer children. This explanation could be even more powerful when applied your own parents, i.e., helping raise your brothers and sisters, with whom you share as many genes as your own children (both .5).
If that was the explanation for human homosexuality, what might you also expect to be true of homosexuality?
2. Explain homosexuality as a byproduct of other adaptive mechanisms.
There are many types of explanations compatible with evolutionary theory, but that do not explain the traits under questions as adaptations in and of themselves. In one way or another, these explanations explain traits as the byproduct of some other adaptive process. The trait in question could be a necessary byproduct of two evolutionarily sound items; for example, an armpit appears when you combine a torso with an arm, but no animal was ever selected specifically for having armpits! Alternatively, the trait in question could be the result of an adaptive mechanism placed in an unusual context; for example, evolution favored humans that desired sweet and fatty food in an environment where such things were rare; now that we are in an environment where such things are plentiful, this desire can cause serious health problems. Homosexuality could be explainable in terms of biological or psychological mechanisms acting appropriately in odd circumstances, or as a byproduct of selection for other beneficial traits.
If that explanation were correct, what types of traits might humans have been selected for that could result in homosexuality when pushed to the extreme or placed in unusual circumstances?
3. Reject the notion of homosexuality as it is currently conceived and offer new categories.
Evolutionary thinking often necessitates a rejection of old categories and the creation of new ones. The current systems of dividing the world may not be relevant to answering evolutionary questions. The labels “Homosexual” and “Heterosexual” may be good examples. The modern notions of strict homo vs. hetero-sexuality arose relatively recently. It has never been bizarrely uncommon for women or men to live together or to set up long term relationships with members of the same sex. What is relatively new is the notion that this can divide people into types, some who exclusively do one thing and some who exclusively do another. A so-called homosexual man need only have sex with a woman once to have a baby, and visa versa. While this is now the stuff of comedic amusement, it may be a much more natural context for homosexuality. There may be no reason to think that so-called homosexuals of the past got pregnant, or impregnated others, less often than so-called hetersexuals.
If this is the case, would there necessarily be any selection for or against preferring the relatively exclusive company of same-sex others? What possible benefits could there be to raising children in a “homosexual” environment? (Hey now, don’t bring moral judgment into this, it is only a question of surviving and thriving.)
============================
On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 6:13 PM ⛧ glen <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> > wrote:
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
But, were group selection and/or cultural evolution a thing, then my friend would be more right. Anyone here have a strong opinion?
--
glen ⛧
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