Indeed. Animals “murder” each other all the time. That’s very natural. Our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, chimps, can be brutal murderers.
You’re leaving out the impetus that causes things to evolve. The species realizes some advantage in doing so. So going from Phase X to Phase X+1 benefits the species. So, finches that evolved to have longer beaks did so because a shorter beak was less advantageous. There was intent in the development of longer beak finches.
“Intent” implies that there was intelligent motivation involved. Like the finches’ beaks intended to help the species survived, so they grew longer. This is ridiculous.
Things can also evolve for no other reason than pure randomness. Advantageous traits aren’t the only traits that become fixed in a population. Some rather pointless ones do too.
Nooooope. Nopenopenopenopenope. There is no intent. There are consequences. Intent implies foresight, which evolution does not and cannot have. Ever. Consequences are after the fact. This new variant just arose - hey! It turns out to be handy! Let’s all do that! There is no “species realizing” anything.
Giving evolution foresight implies that all changes, all variants that exist must be for the good. This leads to tons of bullshit “why did evolution do this or not do that” arguments. The existence of variation within a population means there will be just that - variation. Some beneficial, lots not beneficial. People focus on the beneficial side and tend to forget the corollary - that lots of crappy variants pop up all the time, and it take time for evolutionary processes to eliminate them. That’s what makes the evolutionary argument about homosexuality so tedious. If you accept that homosexuality is (a) genetic and (b) maladaptive - both of which points could be argued to death - that still doesn’t make it evolutionarily impossible.
-Smeghead, biology PhD student
I’m not. Perhaps you should stop and think about some of the fine points here, but basically you’re assuming that because something has evolved, evolution intended it to evolve. That’s not true because evolution doesn’t have intent. It just describes what’s happening. It’s not prescriptive.
This scenario has nothing to do with evolution at all. I mean, I guess it’s true that individuals who try to not get eaten have an advantage over those who don’t try to avoid getting eaten, but that’s not much of a breakthrough.
Yes, although you can still provide an evolutionary benefit to your group (many people have suggested that it’s beneficial to have males around who are not interested in competing for mates). And another common mistake people make when they talk about evolution is assuming the process is somehow supposed to benefit individuals.
I assure you I’m not. I’m not just making vague assertions about intent.
Nothing you just said has anything to do with intent. Finches with longer beaks had less trouble getting food and over time they were more likely to survive and breed than finches with shorter beaks. That doesn’t mean they intentionally grew longer beaks; that’s obviously impossible.
Random mutations occur. If it is advantageous, it might stick around. Other changes are the result of environment as happen slowly over time. Like the finches’ beaks. Can you point to a change in the latter category that continued but was not beneficial? It seems that that would be the exact opposite way evolution works.
Can I point to a change that “is the result of environment as happen slowly over time”? No, I cannot, because I don’t have the faintest clue as to what it’s supposed to mean.
Anyway, what does that have to do with the question of intent? Surely you’re not just shifting the goalposts, are you?
I see what you’re saying now. I don’t disagree with what you just wrote. And I agree that at any given point in time there is no “intent” as in “tomorrow we’ll aim for this”. I was using it as the species has an intent to propagate itself, and will develop characteristics that will increase the odds of that happening. So evolution has “intent” in that rewards minor changes that can turn into meaningful differences.
Right, exactly. “Random” is a pretty clear signal that there was no intent involved in that process. Sometimes the mutations turn out to be beneficial (usually not).
Right. But again, the species isn’t doing anything deliberately, and evolution isn’t somehow trying to make the species change. The conditions change, and if the species is able to handle the conditions, it survives. Over time it may change because of mutations that work in the new environment.
The species doesn’t have any intent. Individuals may have intent, but the species doesn’t sit down and make any plans.
It won’t. You just described them as “random mutations,” and that was accurate. If the mutations are beneficial the species changes and survives; if they’re not and other mutations don’t benefit the species, it doesn’t survive.
Read about genetic drift.
And then read Kurt Vonnegut’s book “Galapagos”.
Getting back to the OP’s question, I would guess that some people who say that homosexuality is unnatural really just mean they don’t believe it’s an innate and/or unchangeable characteristic. This of course doesn’t explain why they think it’s bad, although the question of whether homosexuality is innate/fixed is at least of conceivable relevance in some debates.
I neither affirm nor deny anything. I don’t have a stake in the argument at all beyond attacking arguments that I think are not logical. I was asking you to explain why the penis and vagina are more complementary than the penis and the anus. As far as I can tell, the only answers you’ve offered so far are “it’s obvious” (it isn’t) and “you need vaginal sex to reproduce”, which is fine. That’s a perfectly valid argument. But then you need to explain why non-reproductive vaginal sex is more “natural” than non-reproductive anal sex.
Not, however, if a propensity of throwing rocks at the river evolves over thousands or millions of years into more accurately throwing rocks at pursuing crocodiles.
Pink and yellow polka dot gazelles. They were so easy for lions to see, then kill, before they reproduced that eventually, through natural selection, they went extinct. No reading of evolutionary goals required.
So, you’re saying a penis can have two equally valid “natural” uses? Okay, cool. Now, if it can do two things, why can’t it do three things?
Natural lubricant. Also, if you accept that for the purposes of procreation that a vagina is a more natural place for a penis to be, you accept that there is a natural complementary relationship between the two. So, we have:
penis in vagina—natural and complementary as described above, especially for the act of procreation
penis in anus—?
But you’re trying to switch the burden of proof. Now, you convince me why you think an anus is as natural a place for a penis as a vagina. At the very least, you’re position is the more extraordinary one. You convince me.
No one said it couldn’t.
Missed the edit window:
I read your comment too quickly, skipping over the “equally valid”. So, speaking of an erect penis, it is more natural for it to be inside a vagina than an anus. That you, and others, will not grant the smallest concession to a natural order of things is astounding, bewildering, and at this point, expected.
He didn’t say that, and the statement is meaningless.
There is nothing to concede, nor is there any natural order of things. Perhaps you could get back to discussing the evolution aspect, since your misunderstanding of evolution is very much based on your misunderstanding of nature.
Just a thought (that will no doubt be ignored), but isn’t your entire species ‘unnatural’ when it changes the climate of its home planet, causes the extinction of untold species while barely noticing and creates evidence of its activity on such a vast scale that it can be easily seen from space? (edit: Oh, except North Korea :D)
What’s with the hatred for trees?