Funny how people (not necessarily meaning anyone here) who will grasp at straws to prove that homosexuality is innate are averse to saying the same thing about “homophobia” and vice versa.
Incidently, here is a short article which touches upon the notion of “relative heritability”, and the flaws in assigning a number to the supposed degree of heritability.
I’d think that everyone here knows someone who has overcome a prejudice. In fact, I’d bet that 90% of the people on this board have, at some point of another, learned that their prejudices towards some group or other were baseless, and been able to change how they felt about them.
As a society, we’ve made enormous strides in overcoming prejudices against race and gender. There are still hurdles to clear, but we’ve accomplished an enormous amount.
No wonder we have a hard time with the concept that prejudice may be hard-wired into humans. The evidence that it can be overcome with reason and patience is all around us.
“Heritability” is a standard concept in population genetics; it estimates what proportion of the total phenotypic variation of a trait in a population is due to inheritance, and what proportion is due to environmental effects.
Studies of the genetic basis of homosexuality are fraught with methodological and other problems, including what criteria are used to define “homosexuality.” However, the general consensus is that there is both a genetic (heritable) component and a strong environmental component.
This site associated with NIH gives a summary of some of the more significant studies on the genetics of homosexuality.
I certainly don’t deny that there may well be both biological and environmental components to homosexuality. I’m just very leery of any numbers which can be assigned as the relative degree to which each might be responsible for its expression. (And, I get the impression that such estimates are at least as fraught with methodological problems as is the study of the genetic basis of homosexuality itself.)
And, of course, merely being genetic, and thereby inheritable, does not, in itself, automatically place a trait under the scrutiny of natural selection.
There are scientific studies that indicate that homosexuality is, at least in part, innate.
Would you care to cite any studies that indicate that homophobia (or racism, for that matter) are innate?
For the sake of discussion, this site has a good explanation of the various senses in which heritability is used (bolding mine):
Under what circumstances would a genetic trait that produced sterility not be subject to natural selection?
I agree, and I admit that this is what I thought mrsam was arguing (that is, that the percentages mentioned referred to the role of heritability with respect to expression). My apologies if I have misunderstood.
Well, as I’ve mentioned, a random, but relatively common, mutation which results in sterility might well persist in a population through many generations, even though such individuals never produce offspring. One could not really claim that the allele is being selected against because the effects of natural selection do not hinge upon any individual living or dying or reproducing or failing to reproduce, but rather on the general trend throughout the population, through several generations. And if that general trend happens to be that a certain (small) percentage of couplings result in sterile offspring, and that such occurs in any given generation, and that such is not restricted to a given lineage (that is, it does not necessarily follow family lines, but occurs more or less at random), then I think it could be argued that that trait is unaffected by natural selection. (NOTE: I am not arguing that such a case can actually be found in nature, or that such might be the case with respect to homosexuality; only providing an admittedly very hypothetical situation.)
Of course, homosexuality is not sterility. Such individuals can reproduce, they just typically don’t. In that respect, it is little different from my own desire not to have children.
Do studies of other apes find ape individuals that are exclusively homosexual in their breeding habits? What about other species less closely related to humans?
Does the presence of homosexual behaviour in the many species that have shown it pretty much guarantee a significant genetic advantage must exist in this behaviour?
Do any of the species that show homosexual behaviour also show behaviour patterns analagous to homophobia?
Interesting thread.
I have heard the argument that a homosexuality-producing gene confers an advantage on a population, because of the availability of non-reproducing members assisting with child care. Are there any studies that actually demonstrate this?
I know about the lesbian seagulls and so forth. Is there any evidence that a certain number of lesbian pairs in seagull populations means that more young survive to maturity? This would be especially useful if it could be shown that some seagulls had opposite-sex partners available, but preferred to “mate” with their own sex.
I am trying to come up with a non-controversial way of saying, “OK, it could be. Is there any evidence that it is?”
I am also unsure about the assumption that, because homosexuality persists, it must be getting selected for in some way. I think the evidence for a genetic component in, for instance, alcoholism or diabetes is as strong or stronger than for a genetic component in homosexuality. But I doubt that diabetes or alcoholism is being selected for.
Couldn’t it be possible that homosexuality is a commonly occurring variation in a small set of genes? Or (my own WAG) the result of the interaction in some common variation and some post-conception process like imprinting. Thus everyone is born with some genetic mechanism that allows them to sense the difference between men and women. It is sex-linked, so that males imprint on females and females on males. In some minority of cases, there is a flaw in the mechanism, so that when imprinting happens, they imprint on the “wrong” sex, and become gay.
Naturally, there is a huge environmental component, that might even be strong enough to force the mechanism to work thru social pressure. And even someone who imprinted on the “wrong” sex would be either encouraged or discouraged from acting on it, depending on what his social group told him was right or wrong.
As far as evolutionary pressure in favor of homophobia, I think it would simply take the form of parents who wanted their children to reproduce. Someone who was exclusively gay, and refused to marry, would be subject (in many societies) to extreme pressure to give and marry. In the case of women, the idea of refusing to marry and reproduce may not have occurred to anyone. Many daughters got to say Yes or No to particular suitors. But the social expectation that eventually she would marry someone and start pumping out grandchildren was extremely strong.
Obviously none of this justifies anything morally. Lots of things, from infanticide to rape, can come about thru social or evolutionary pressure, and that doesn’t make it right. Neither would it justify homophobia.
All this is speculation on my part, and should not be mistaken for the opinions of someone with a background in evolutionary biology.
Regards,
Shodan
Given that alcohol had only been inveneted relatively recently, the alcoholism gene would have been neutral for most of human history. And it IS being rapidly selected against, people of European origin often have a far higher tolerence for alcohol than Asian people.
Similarly with diabetes, IIRC, diabetes from birth is usually quite rare and usually requires some sort of enviromental “trigger” to activate. Only in recent times with an abundance of food has diabetes become a serious problem.
However, Homosexuality is by definition guarenteed to not spread your genes thus should be selected against the most strongly of all, yet it still persists. This would indicate that the gene being far from neutral must have a correspondingly positive role inside a group.
But I think everyone has missed Scylla’s point completely. Given that we are arguing that homosexuality having a genetic component absolves the homosexuals, can we also argue that homophobia’s gentic background is ALSO grounds for absolving homophobics (This is given that both have a significant genetic component). It seems that we hold the two groups to a double standard.
My first instinctive gut reaction was no, thats stupid. Using genetic heritage as an excuse is about as stupid as using determinism to argue that you could have not done differently. Society is based on the premise that all people have free wills and that a large part of living civilly is defeating your genetic heritage rather than embracing it.
However, we also have the other side of the coin. What if the homophobics are actually serving a benifical role in society? What if all this talk about not hating others for being different and letting people do what ever they want behind closed doors is really bullshit.
While its easy to see why racism or the subjugation of women is an outmoded and useless belief system, but its far harder to make the argument for homosexuality.
I think xenophobia, as others have touched on, may be hard-wired into us. It can be seen in many tribal animals, this fear of the “other”, and serves a certain purpose in dangerous environs. However, humans form extremely complex tribes indeed and the definition of “us” vs “them” becomes not so clearly defined. “Us” can be the whites vs them blacks, the heterosexuals vs the homosexuals, the people who crack an egg on the top or the side… any factor that seperates you from me is a possible separation of “us” from “them”. Therefore the offspring of xenophobia, homophobia, can be seen as something genetic modified by environment. Some cultures fear another type of other than homosexuality, thus homophobia is less likely to be the manifestation of xenophobia within it.
As for homosexuality nature vs nurture, my basic feeling at this time is “I don’t care”. I am me. I’m a good person. I’m a gay person. I’m a good gay person. Whether I’m a good gay person because my relationship with my father was inadequate as a youth (not really), or because my genes have a hint of lavender shouldn’t matter so long as I am a good, productive faggot in society doing no one any harm. Everything else is just abstractions, mental masturbation, and soothing the ruffled feathers of internalized homophobia (“its not my fault!”). I don’t think I could take any “credit” for being gay, but if I could then I would because its not been such a bad shaper in my life. Eeep I think I’m rambling a bit… one glass of wine and I’m a wee bit tipsy. Ending now.
The evidence that prejudice can be overcome with reason and patience has nothing to do whether it is innate or not.
Group effects are undoubtedly innate. Anthropology shows in-group favouritism to be innate (see Brown’s Human Universals) and in-group favouritism of a particularly xenophobic kind is shown in Goodall’s work on chimpanzees.
If you find your prejudices against some group or other baseless, they will change from outgroup to ingroup. This does not deny that group effects exist. It just shows that they can be transient.
Or, it could indicate that you haven’t been paying attention: there are plenty of other ways in which homosexuality can be either genetic or otherwise biological and still remain selectively neutral, and thereby persist. Nor is it “guaranteed to not spread your genes” – as has also been pointed out, homosexuality is not sterility. Even if it were, it could still be actively detrimental to one’s reproductive success, yet still persist, depending on the mechanism of its expression. For example, if it happens to be entirely developmental in nature, natural selection would have little effect on its frequency in a population.
Once again, I feel I must point out that natural selection is not a guarantee of anything. It is not a guarantee that beneficial genes will flourish, nor is it a guarantee the detrimental genes will be exterminated. It is a statistical phenomenon, acting over an entire population. And homosexuality is no more detrimental to the spreading of one’s genes than any other suite of circumstances which prevent an individual from reproducing. There exists competition for mates – not everyone is a winner in the mating game, even if they are attracted to the “proper” sex. Yet, it still happens that, in every generation, in pretty much every (if not all) species, there are those who do not reproduce, for whatever reason(s). The combination of traits which result in “non-mating” persist despite the fact that the very definition of natural selection is that such traits tend to be weeded out. Shall we now argue that such traits are, in fact, beneficial to the group?!
On the contrary, Scylla’s point has not been missed, it has been dismissed. There is zero evidence that homophobia is genetic in nature, much less inheritable. We can concoct stories about how this trait or that trait might be beneficial or somesuch, but, unless anyone can provide evidence that that’s the way it is, as opposed to how it could be, it remains nothing more than storytelling.
Relevant to this thread, the explanation seems to be that homosexuality is beneficial to the group. This means that any homosexual individual would, by definition, have to part of the group in order to provide some benefit to it. Therefore, such an individual would necessarily be in the favored group. This presents something of a paradox if homophobia is supposed to be an expression of this innate distrust of those outside said group, don’t you think?
I don’t know of any specific studies examining the presence of homosexual pair-bonding and its effect on the overall survival of the species, but there are several examples of homosexual pair-bonding even in the presence of available members of the opposite sex.
Here is my favorite. In re two male penguins at the NY aquarium:
and Silo and Roy at the Central Park Zoo:
There are several other such articles available, even in a quick Google search; for printed material, try Biological Exuberance, from Bruce Bagemihl.
I haven’t the time, alas, to read this very long thread thoroughly, but I feel I must raise a couple of issues.
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Isn’t the whole idea of population-selection now discredited? I gene cannot be favoured by natural selection if it favours the population as a whole but does not favour the individual who carries it.
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Since intolerence of those unlike ourselves is enormously prevelant in all human societies, does it not seem likely that this is one of the traits that make us human. It is (thankfully) no longer acceptable in modern western society to be homophobic, but this is an ethical choice, quite distinct from any innate or hereditable behaviour.
I will return to this fascinating topic when I have more time.
Cheers
Tom
Now I’ve not studied every culture, but most cultures were accepting of homosexuality and I only know of two that weren’t - the Aztecs and the Jews.
Is was said that the Aztecs were homophobic because they were a war-like people and homosexuals tended to be leader of the opposing tribes. (I forget the author of this book , but it was titled “Human Sexuality” and terribly old.)
And the reason why the Jews were against homosexuality was because they were encouraged to be fertile and have lots of children. Infertile men who were also treated negatively. I first read this in the book “The Church and the Homosexual” by John McNiell and some other posters said things along similar lines in another thread.
Futhermore, the last time we discussed this topic, someone (Guin?) posted a link to a study done of children that proved that homophobia is taught. Unfortunately, I can’t find that link.
** Bippy the Beardless** the book Biological Excuberance covers this topic and unfortunately, I can’t find where my boyfriend put it either. (i’m not having any luck today with my cites. ;.; )
But among some apes, the older, bigger males get most of the females, so the younger males bond and play with each other through homosexual activites. There are some species that engage in homosexual activies in order to mate.
Another thing, you will note that intolerance to homosexuality rises when a population is threatened -if- the population already has some intolerance to homosexuality. For example, Europe during the 14th century.
There’s a difference between group selection and kin-selection. A homosexual couple which helps their relatives to bring up children are indirectly passing their genes along.
Note also what Darwin’s Finch said, that just because it’s done doesn’t mean it’s an adaption for something.