It’s not hypnosis. Do you think that when you read it you did not think of that? It’s kind of a trope or a meme or something. Oh forget it.
That Peter is a douchebag.
But seriously, though I suspect this is wasted effort, why would gay genes (if there are such things) have died out over history when gay people over history have had babies, er, over history?
It is analogous on the level that people are equating mere thoughts or ideas that may from time to time be present in someone’s mind (either through the suggestion of someone else, some media or whatever) or simple imagination, as being evidence of something innate and unchangeable. I disagree with that premise which is why I brought up the analogy. However, that is the only comparison I wished to make with it.
Just to clear that up.
As far as “acts of will” are concerned - it seems to me you see this as some sort of struggle with the victor winning the battle. That is not necessarily so. Let me illustrate:
- I don't use Heroin. At some point in my distant past, I did try it a few times (around 20 years ago). If the idea to use heroin popped into my head or someone offered me some now, I would refuse. Easily refuse.
Just because it is easy doesn't make it any less an act of will.
- In contrast, I DO use tobacco. It is a very ingrained habit. It would take a tremendous effort involving a lot of discipline to remove this habit from my mind and from my subconscious habits.
To do that would take an act of will, but just because it is hard doesn't make it any more an act of will than if it was easy.
I didn’t think of that because I had no reason to think of that. The classic “test” is to ask a person to imagine a pink elephant in detail, then to tell them to stop thinking about it. It can be hard, then, because they were already thinking about it. But if you just randomly pop in and tell people to stop thinking of something, or not to think of something, that they have no reason at all to be thinking of, it doesn’t work. It has no power. It’s like popping up and demanding people not to get “A Hard Day’s Night” in their heads. I am prone to earworms, but you saying a song randomly won’t work. It has to be a song I’m already primed to have stuck in my head.
Why did we lose our tails?
To get to the other side.
You were thinking of it when you read it or else you are possibly schizophrenic. As soon as you read it you thought of it. If you want to analyze reasons you have for thinking of it or not, you are going beyond my meaning.
In popular culture[edit]
Similar ideas appear throughout popular culture and sayings, often with variations on animal and color, such as “It’s as hard as trying not to think of a pink rhinoceros.”[13]
You have leaped to the unsupported conclusion that homosexuality plays a major role in affecting reproduction.
Throughout most of history, homosexuals have mated and bred, just like everyone else, because marriage and breeding were the social norm. It has only been in recent decades that the notion that homosexuals might pair up as life partners has arisen. As it happens, that separate trend has arisen pretty much simultaneously with the notion of IVF and surrogate parenting.
So, through previous centuries, homosexuals would have continued to reproduce, regardless of their orientation, and now they will reproduce because science has provided the means to do so.
For your logic to have any meaning, you need to provide evidence that homosexuals never mated. Do you have any evidence for such a claim?
I’m sure your definition of that is equally rigorous as the rest of your contributions to this thread.
Are you sure that it was not a reference to Peggy?
While neither of these are directly a violation of the rules, I will caution you that you are treading very close to the line prohibiting insults.
Please dial it back.
[ /Moderating ]
How do you know that homosexuality hasn’t decreased over time?
Personally I doubt this is the case, but we really have no way of knowing how common homosexuality was in the past. We have limited information about how common homosexuality is even today.
You’d think so… But why isn’t this true for all recessive genes? Why are there any blue-eyed people around, if the recessive gene for blue eyes would “average out” over time?
(Truth to tell, I don’t know the answer to this. What is the reinforcing mechanism that keeps recessives from being swamped? I never had any genetics science classes, but I know there’s folk here who know.)
My argument is that someone would need to demonstrate that they mated at rates of heterosexuals to counter evolution, in an inborn hereditary model. To say they mated and bred because it was a social norm isn’t answering this issue. General statements like someone had a gay brother, or there was social pressure to reproduce don’t answer this. I’m just asking the evolutionary question. I hope this was the right place. Hope noone is bent up about it. I was not calling anyone 'schizophrenic" in the least.
I have, upon more than one occasion, listened to the entirety of the William Tell overture by Rossini, without thinking of the Lone Ranger.
Well in my late teens and early 20’s; I tried to pray my gay away. And not getting any results sure helped cure me of my biblically inspired wingnuttery…
I believe that it is innate, AND the latter statement. That is to say, I believe heterosexuality is innate in the majority of human beings and that homosexuality is fostered or nurtured, if you will, by a variety of factors. For example, I know a woman who was actively lesbian after experiencing a very abusive relationship with her former husband, then turned from same sex relationships to be with a man again who treated her much better. So, it is a learned behavior that is influenced by lots of things, what a person believes about it, their relationships with the opposite sex (or lack of them), relationships with parents and other parental figures, what they experiment with in youth, etc.
This isn't a religious perspective btw. I identify as Deist, although I do have some Christian leanings. But I don't defend my position from the Bible. I think Nature defines it and that this is simply observable in all species where there is male and female.
Actually, Trinopus said exactly that.
This, on the other hand, is something that nobody has said. Gay people certainly do not have as many children as straight people. This is probably one of the reasons why there aren’t as many gay people in the world as straight people. (At least, it would be, if genetics played a significant role in homosexuality, which is not something that’s ever been proven.) Likewise, left handed people don’t have as many kids as right handed people, nor blue eyed folks as many as brown eyed. None the less, these traits still exist, because these groups still have some kids - enough to keep those genes (either recessive or fully expressed) in the population.
Note, please, that I was not talking about gay couples raising kids, I was talking about gay individuals fathering/giving birth to children. Historically, the vast majority of these children would likely have had only one gay parent. But so what? Why do you imagine that this is a significant or useful question? Assuming a gay gene actually exists, a person does not have to be gay themselves to carry that gene, they just need to be the offspring of someone else who has it - and that parent does not need to be gay themselves to also be carrying the gene.
That’s not really an argument you’ve got there, so much as an assumption. Ones that’s founded on a pretty severe misunderstanding of how biology works. There are a lot of genetic traits that are highly recessive, yet still exist in the population - including ones that, unlike homosexuality, are a legitimate barrier to procreation. Tay-Sachs disease is a genetic disorder that generally kills its victims by the age of four. Yet the disease still exists, because the gene is recessive in the vast majority of people who carry it. Generations can go by, passing this deadly gene from parent to child, with no one ever actually getting sick from it until one of them is unfortunate enough to marry another recessive carrier, and all their kids die horribly. If that terrible gene can survive being winnowed out by natural selection, why on Earth would you think that homosexuality, which is neither fatal nor a bar to reproduction, would get bred out?
I know not Trinopus and cannot answer for Trinopus.
My question is around the fact that if you do not reproduce as much, that is not just a reason that you are less of the population; it is, by Darwin, an evolutionary disadvantage, and you will be less and less as time goes on. That’s why Darwins theory was so cruel and resisted by the Godly. It’s happened countless times to countless species. You have to admit "This is probably one of the reasons why there aren’t as many gay people in the world as straight people. " is not a very rigorous statement.
Similarly “Assuming a gay gene actually exists, a person does not have to be gay themselves to carry that gene, they just need to be the offspring of someone else who has it - and that parent does not need to be gay themselves to also be carrying the gene.” does not account for the long scale of evolution at all. There will be an evolutionary disadvantage to this line.
The anecdotes and truisms about gay people and how they have existed in society, and which you referenced are not relevant to this question. You said they are inclined to have children. My response in this genetic argument was that many of those children have straight parents. Sorry if you didn’t think this was responsive to your point.
Blue eyes and left handedness do not relate to reproductivity so I didn’t think they are good analogues. We could use a geneticist in the room though. You’re right there is not a solid proof either way on this. That is why I am trying to discuss it here. We may lose blue eyes someday. We’ll have lefties as long as there’s baseball I guess.