[On eliminating homosexuality from the gene pool]
It would arguably "streamline" the human experience considerably by removing our need to adapt to what is essentially useless behavior in the first place. It would also increase the efficiency with which human beings accomplish certain biological tasks.
At the end of the day, the simple fact of the matter is that homosexuality (note that I did not say homosexual persons) is more or less worthless. It is an anomaly at best, and a distraction at worst.
There is no reason why it should have to exist.
32 comments
"It would also increase the efficiency with which human beings accomplish certain biological tasks."
Because what mankind needs is to be more efficient at breeding... riiiiiight.
EDIT: Notice the "88" in his username. Possibly a Neo-Nazi. (Or possibly a 26 year-old)
To highly simplify it, the same conditions that cause homosexuality in one gender lead to higher fertility in the other. It's adaptive, and the benefit one gender gets highly outweighs the evolutionary penalty the other gets. Remember, it's the gene that gets passed on, not the individual.
Well, homosexuality doesn’t seem to be a hereditary trait, otherwise straight parents wouldn’t have gay children and vice-versa.*
How would we even be able to “eliminate it from the gene pool” then?
*I’m not a biologist or anything similar. If I am wrong, please someone correct me.
Wouldn't it streamline the human experience, gathomas88, to eliminate white skin from the gene pool? After all, most of the world's people get on just fine without it. There is no reason why it should have to exist.
@Kuno
"Well, homosexuality doesn’t seem to be a hereditary trait, otherwise straight parents wouldn’t have gay children and vice-versa.*"
Traits can be erratically expressed, and skip a generation.
There is a hypothesis that the imprintiing that allows correct sexual development of a fetus is sometimes not completely erased from a germ cell, and affects the development of a fetus of the opposite sex.
This is not strictly genetics, it is epigenetics.
If there was no reason for homosexuality, it wouldn't exist. It exists. Therefore there is a reason for it. Mind you, it may be a common mutation - after all, Down Syndrome still exists - or it may simply be an occasional side effect (like sickle-cell anemia) of something else that has important survival value.
Yeah, and let's get rid of left-handed people, red-heads and those with blue eyes too. I mean let's streamline society so that everyone looks the same and feels the same and believes the same. It'll be paradise.
I've sometimes thought that because reproduction is a biological imperative but also somewhat risky, homosexuality is an insurance policy. i.e not putting all your species eggs in one basket, so to speak. Ok, homosexuals may not be naturally inclined to want to reproduce but given the possibility of extinction one must do ones duty.
How's that for a homespun theory?
The smallest demographic figure I have heard for homosexuals is 1%, from a Fundie.
If all the homosexuals since, oh, let's say, the birth of Jesus were straight and fertile, suppose that there would be 1% more people every 25 years...
We'd have more than double! 14 billion!
Now do you see the worth of homosexuality? It's saved the world!
I can't see a reason for red hair, green eyes, left-handedness, or inability to roll your own tongue to exist, either.
This is a discussion that we may have to have someday.
Epigenetics is beginning to study how genes can be turned on, turned off of adjusted in terms of their influence on the phenotype.
If, and it's a big if, we some day learn how to "turn off" genes it might be possible to cure some genetic diseases.
It might then also be possible, assuming we learn more about the genetic component of homosexuality, to "turn off" homosexuality and make everyone at least nominally heterosexual (what sort of side effects this might have is obviously unknown at this time).
Would it be ethical for parents to turn this gene off in their child?
Homosexuality is in all likelihood related to a number of factors. Certain combinations of otherwise neutral genes, in other words. Alternatively, there might be factors in development which lead to same sex attractions, such as hormone exposure or birth order for males.
Sure, homosexual behavior doesn't lead to reproduction. But I'm sure there are plenty of heterosexual behaviors which also do not lead to reproduction. In fact, I'm probably going to regret saying this if a fellow commenter proves me wrong, but I'm fairly certain that just about every form of same sex intercourse can be and is recreated by heterosexuals, albeit not always the exact same way.
Useless? Because men can't have children?
What about infertile or sterile men and women?
What about people who decide not to have children?
What about gay or lesbian couples who adopt and raise children?
Gathomas88, you're a moron.
The human species is much more worthless than homosexuality, as a matter of fact. If we became extinct tomorrow, all other forms of life would be thriving in fifty years. (If bees became extinct tomorrow, there will be very few plants in fifty years.)
As homosexuality can be found in hundreds of species, it must indeed have some purpose, and as the more boys a woman have, the higher the odds of her having a gay son is, it's probably something to do with extra help with child-rearing (in the next generation obviously), and population control.
Your horsemanure about removing "useless" traits (I'm not even sure if there is such a thing as a gene for that) smacks of a certain racist ideology I despise to the very core.
Depart from here, you who work iniquity!
"There is no reason why it should have to exist."
Homosexuality make the world just that little bit more Fabulous .
That's reason enough for me, and I'm straight .
@hudson
There is no reason why gathomas88 should exist.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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