(no subject)

[sciatrix]

"how has homosexual orientation evolved, given that, on average, homosexual individuals produce fewer children than do heterosexual individuals (this relative fitness relation between homosexuals and heterosexuals is considered an assumption for the purposes of this paper, given that the empirical evidence in the literature from Alfred Kinsey and others is weak)"

sir

do you hear yourself

do you hear yourself

I am not entirely sure if I can review this literature sober. The first thing I tackled was a piece purporting to be a review about proposed mechanisms for the evolution of female homosexuality; it spent three or four paragraphs explaining the possibility that bisexuality in women evolved for the purpose of attracting and interesting heterosexual men.

I cannot even.

Comments

[hebethen]

...yikes.

And I thought we got over the "only direct personal reproduction is a factor in selection pressure" thing.... idk how long ago, but long enough ago for me to have learned about it as a non-biologist. :|a

[sciatrix]

Oh, they went there first, actually; in fact, the paper I was initially quoting is a group selectionist argument for homosexuality being beneficial. He just hasn't gotten there yet in those few sentences.

No, the thing I have the grouchy irritation about is the assumption that homosexuality is inherently evolutionarily costly and so has to be explained. Humans have a whole lot of sex for a whole lot of reasons, some of which are not under any individual person's exact control (women especially here), and having sex with reproductively incompatible people does not preclude the possibility of at least occasionally having sex with compatible ones. So much of human survival rests on what happens after the sprog gets born that I just... don't see preferences as being all that evolutionarily visible, not when there are so many things potentially hindering human reproduction.

That being said, there are a lot of weird adaptationist arguments for why homosexuality out there, some of which have been more or less debunked and some which are under active study and academic fighting.