No smugness intended. Just stating what I have read as facts.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Dear Fascist Bully Boys,
Give me more money, you bastards.
May the seed of your loins prove fruitful in the belly of your woman.
neil
mikan: No one hear is asking gays to justify their sexuality. This is an intellectual debate on the biological mechanisms of homosexuality not morality.
Satan: Thanks much for providing the informative links. Lots of good reading in the Miller paper.
Sqrl: Statistics do show that blacks (homo & hetro) are now the #1 AIDS infected population on the planet. My guess is lack of education is the primary factor in the rampant spread of AIDS in Africa. High-risk sexual behavior and needles are probably the primary factor of the spread in this nation.
I’m not understanding how homosexuality has anything to do with your wild dog example.
Otto: Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
Esprix: I am not the slightest bit concerned that the human race will all become homosexual. I know two really brilliant, gorgeous gay men who I wish would reproduce - they have stated that they will not. I don’t want to see good genetic material wasted. I also wouldn’t want my child to be a homosexual for the same reason. I may not be brilliant, but I don’t want to work hard selecting the right mate and raise a child only to have the bloodline end just like that because junior likes guys.
I stand by my statement that 6-10% of the population is genetically significant, technology or no.
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” huh? I suppose we should cease all research into black holes, depression, human evolution, gravity, and neutrinos because we hardly know anything about them, and it would be dangerous to know just a little bit, right? :rolleyes:
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Oh, you’re going to make a wonderful parent someday. What are you, Vulcan? “Your genetic code combined with my own will produce substantially sufficient offspring. We may begin spawning now.”
I disagree, but whatever. Suppose your homosexual son decides to artificially inseminate a female friend? Would you be significantly less disappointed in how he turned out? And what about all your highly intelligent straight friends who choose not to have children? Do you cluck your tongue and shake your head at them? I think there are enough cream of the crop type people in the world to ensure we won’t be reverting to a pre-Neanderthalic state any time soon.
Nice way to twist - kudos. My point was that understanding our universe is an important part of understanding ourselves, but there are obvious dangers if we’re not prepared to deal with the answers we find - Controversy over cloning, gene therapy, etc. are giving ethics professors job security the world over. Gee, do you think there was ever a time we thought something was good, only to find out it was bad, or vice versa? :rolleyes: right back atcha.
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
In the wild dog community the group is bonded together to make a cohesive whole. The beta dogs all strive to protect the alpha dogs. The analogy to humans is that one is more likely to protect someone with the most amount of “blood” in common with another individual. For example, I am more likely to fight to the death for my sister than my tenth cousin twice removed. I am also more likely to donate an organ to an immediate family member than to a stranger, assuming that they were compatible in all instances. Wild dogs survive because they work together. There is no way a smaller pack of dogs would be able to get enough food to feed all the baby dogs from just a single litter. It is that way with people too. I, personally, would not want to adopt children but the theory is that I as a non-reproductive but fairly successful member of society could adopt and thus raise another successful member of society to reproduce or not reproduce as that person sees fit. So you know, the African Wild Dogs are very protective of their pack and babies, again just like people. Think of all the American media attention that came about as a result of that piece of crap vandal in Hong Kong when they said his punishment would be a caning. Many, many Americans were against it with the white kid but not really with the Asian kid. This is because we perceived him as having more of “our blood” than the Asian kid overall. This assumes that the media plays into the majority anglo-american stereotype which in most of the country it does. Personally, I was indifferent to the situation. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me, but I wouldn’t do it in the first place. (I wouldn’t go to Jamaica either because homosexuality is severely punished there.)
Is there any more clarification that I can give to you regarding my African Wild Dogs analogy?
HUGS!
Sqrl
Dear Fascist Bully Boys,
Give me more money, you bastards.
May the seed of your loins prove fruitful in the belly of your woman.
neil
Esprix, I can’t be Vulcan because everybody knows that all Vulcans are homosexual. I prefer the term, “Romulan”.
Yes, although not if the offspring is homosexual.
While I don’t heap disdain on my friends, I do find it unfortunate that any decent person refrain from reproducing. Although I have my days (like today) when I think it would really be best if we just let the whole damn race die out.
To fully understand the significance and implications of something, we must have knowledge of the nature of the thing. We must not be afraid of what we might find. You might live in fear of the savage monsters living under your bed all your life and die a terrified old man. All you had to do was turn the light on and look.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
I am enjoying the African Wild Dog Stories, but I think it say more about communism/socialism than homosexuality.
'Twas Singapore, not Hong Kong where Mike Fay was threatened with caning. He came back to the States and was soonthereafter arrested on drug charges. Other than that I completely agree with your “bloodlines” theory.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
The full quotation:
“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
But drinking largely sobers us again.”
-Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
BTW: here’s a poser. In a world as grotesquely overpopulated as this one, is the decision to reproduce morally defensible? I’m not arguing one way or the other. I’m just posing the question.
This world is far from overpopulated.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Sake Samurai: yes, I realize that you intended this thread to be an intellectual debate on the biological mechanisms of homosexuality rather than on morality.
Unfortunately, there’s not very far you can go in that debate before it crosses the line into the realm of morality. To ask if homosexuality is genetically determined is one thing, but the debate quickly loses its veneer of scientific neutrality once you start framing it in evolutionary terms the way you have. Just look at the three categories laid out in your OP: the way you present it, the question is whether homosexuality is genetically “normal”, “dangerous”, or “beneficial”. Hmm, these certainly look and smell like moral valuations to me.
If homosexuality is in fact genetically based, who’s to say whether it’s good or bad for the gene pool? It all depends on who you ask, and it’s always going to be a judgment call. Hell, try asking some American Indians if they think the mixing of the gene pool that yielded the White Man was “beneficial”! There’s no “view from nowhere” that allows you to extricate yourself from the moral nature of the problem, as you’ve posed it.
Determining whether something is good or bad, benefical or dangerous, when it comes to human populations is unavoidably a moral problem; it’s not a scientific one. The authority we ascribe to scientific discourse might lull us into believing otherwise, but THAT’s when things start getting dangerous!
The dogs that don’t have sex with the alpha females have sex amongst themselves (i.e. male to male). I am too lazy to do a websearch, but you can easily find more authoritative quotes and information than I can provide by looking there.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Dear Fascist Bully Boys,
Give me more money, you bastards.
May the seed of your loins prove fruitful in the belly of your woman.
neil
Is there any evidence for this?
Oh, dear - my sincerest apologies. If Vulcans say, “Live long and prosper,” do Romulans say, “Die young and sterile?” 
Kee-rist, how selfish. I truly feel sorry for your children.
How sad that your friends disappoint you so.
A simplistic view for such complex issues like the nature of the universe. I agree that we should always strive to learn more about our world, our lives and ourselves; my point is simply that we, as human beings, react as soon as we get information on something, no matter how slight, new or insignificant, regardless of the fact that with more information, in time, we would react quite differently - it is the nature of man. If somewhere down the line science finds the “gay gene,” is society responsible enough to handle that little bit of information without fully understanding the impact of mucking around with that gene will have on the species as a whole?
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that knowledge is good, but what we do with that knowledge is more important.
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
I’m with mikan on this.
There’s that “what we do with the knowledge we have” question again. Maybe, on a global/species-wide scale, something we may never be able to comprehend, homosexuality is necessary in some small way. Take away one bug from an ecosystem and the effects are potentially astounding. We’re talking Prime Directive here…
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
Hmmm, isn’t this like proving a negative? 
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
Esprix, go to Snark’s thread on the MPSIMS and give some of your opinions there too, please.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Dear Fascist Bully Boys,
Give me more money, you bastards.
May the seed of your loins prove fruitful in the belly of your woman.
neil
quote:
“If homosexuality can be controlled and homosexuals do not pass their genes on, it would seem that rejection of homosexual behavior would be beneficial to the gene pool.”
If homosexuality were genetically controlled and homosexuals never reproduced the trait wouls still be carried and reproduced in their siblings’ offspring.
Here’s a text book example for the genetic disorder PKU which is expressed only in the homozygous recessive. If the frequency of allele “a” is about 0.01, individuals with the aa genotype would bamke up 0.0001 of the population (1 child for every 10,000 born".
It would take 100 generations, roughly 2,500 years, of a program of sterilization of homozygous individuals with this condition to halve the allele frequency (to 0.005) and reduce the number born with this genetic disorder to 1 in 40,000.
Even if possible it wouldn’t be a quick job.
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
Why? I mean, thanks, I’ll check it out, but between several Great Debates, commenting on Cecil’s same sex marriage column and my own in the BBQ Pit, I’ve got my hands full! 
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
mikan: Objectivity is neigh impossible in this debate, but I am trying.
How we deal with homosexuality in our society is ultimately a judgement call. I just don’t think the impact it has (or may not have) on our genetics and evolution is.
Sqrl: I was, of course, very reluctant to type “African Wild Dog Homosexual Sex” :eek: into a search engine. I finally bit the bullet and did it, though, and found this:
It seems that while the males of the pack are very loving and communal, they are also almost always related. The species is slowly dying out. Not the best role models.
I’m not saying this again: Refrain from the personal attacks here. You’ve got a Pit thread for that kind of behavior. Don’t make me go over there. :mad:
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Was Hamer the guy who claimed a decade ago to have found this one gene/allele, where 50% of those with the allele were gay while only 2% of those without the allele were gay?
And if so (or if not), what happened to the claims about that gene/allele? I haven’t heard any major news stories about it since then.
Tracer, genes for alcoholism and homosexuality were discovered around the same time and there was a big fuss in the papers.
But that was it, both were later “disproved” and are no longer held to be true. I haven’t seen it discussed, just a line or two here or there saying disproved or something to that effect.