Re: OT: What? the clean-shaven outnumber the bearded?"YerUgly Mug," etc.
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, May 23, 2003, 9:31 |
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En réponse à Tristan McLeay :
>Pardon me for being this way, but is their any advantage to being gay
>over being straight from an evolutionary perspective?
Probably not, but it doesn't mean that they aren't both *equally*
advantageous from an evolutionary perspective. If not, how can you explain
that *all* sexed species which have been studied have been shown to include
homosexual behaviours considered perfectly normal by the animal community?
(for animals living in society) And homosexuality seems even more common
the more complex the behaviours of the species are. Homosexual behaviours
seem so common that the very first time scientists managed to catch two
octopusses mating in nature (this hadn't been seen before), it soon
appeared that they were looking at a homosexual mating ;))) . Of course,
this is just a coincidence, but quite a funny one :))) . And look at the
Bonobos, the species closest to humans, where bisexuality is the normal and
homosexuality as common as pure heterosexuality. If all those behaviours
were wrong from an evolutionary perspective, how come they didn't disappear?
> Being straight has
>the obvious advantage that it's likely to encourage you to have
>children,[1] but I'm not sure what, if any, advantage being gay has.
> From that perspective, wouldn't being gay be a 'mistake', even if it's
>not one that necessarily needs to be irradicated?
You should check "Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural
Diversity" at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312192398/ref=ase_ontarioconsultanA/102-2425665-9803361
(you'll probably need to copy-paste the address as it probably doesn't fit
in a single line). The reviews are worth it by themselves :)) . Although
the style of the author in his chapter titles is a bit "exuberant" itself,
his thesis holds very well: that the idea that only features that are
evolutionarily advantageous survive is flawed, because it doesn't explain a
lot of animal behaviours that have survived for generations and
generations. It also destroys the very notion of evolutionary "mistake".
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.
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