Posted on 06/18/2009 7:42:41 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Homosexual behavior seems pointedly un-Darwinian. An animal that doesn't pass along genes by mating with the opposite sex at every, well, conceivable opportunity, seems to be at an evolutionary disadvantage. So what’s in it for the 450-plus species that go for same-sex sex?
Two evolutionary biologists from University of California, Riverside, set out to answer that question in a paper published today in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
"It's been observed a lot," says Nathan Bailey, a post-doctoral researcher at U.C. Riverside and lead study author, of same-sex sexual behavior in animals. "But it took people a long time to put it in an evolutionary context."
After studying dozens of published articles on the topic, Bailey and his colleague Marlene Zuk concluded that, in addition to being an adaptational strategy, "these behaviors can be a force," Bailey said. "They create a context in which selection can occur [differently] within a population."
In the Laysan albatross, for example, previous research has shown that a third of all bonded pairs in a Hawaii colony are two females. This behavior helps the birds, whose colony has far more females than males, by allowing them to share parenting responsibilities. It also gives more stability to the offspring of males, already bonded to a female, who mate opportunistically with females in a same-sex couple. Such a dynamic, then may force gradual changes in behavior and even physical appearance of the birds, the authors note.
Other researchers, however, aren't convinced that everything must fit into the evolutionary, adaptive rubric. "You have to think outside of that," says Paul Vasey, who studies Japanese macaque monkeys as an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge in Canada.
>>It also gives more stability to the offspring of
>>males, already bonded to a female, who mate
>>opportunistically with females in a same-sex couple.
That’s a male with a harem, not the lesbianism the anthropomorphizing “researchers” are attempting to hang around the albatross’ neck.
Humans are MAMMALS, and, thanks to billions of years of evolution, mammals reproduce HETEROsexually.
There is absolutely no evidence that “tolerating” homosexual behavior has positive impact upon the social or biological fitness of human societies. None. Zip. Nada.
OTOH, there is historical evidence of the demise of homosexually tolerant societies - Hellenist Greece, Rome, Sodom and Gomorrah, Nazi Germany, and the USA.
Do what thou wilt is NOT the whole of the law.
"Praised be he who permits the forbidden"
--Tsvi Sabbatai, Jewish Appostate and false messiah, circa 1660"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"
--Aleister Crowley, founder of modern Satanism, circa 1908"[A community] organizer... does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing. ... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma"--Saul Alinsky, circa 1973
>>”It’s been observed a lot,” says Nathan Bailey
So has cancer.
“OTOH, there is historical evidence of the demise of homosexually tolerant societies - Hellenist Greece, Rome, Sodom and Gomorrah, Nazi Germany, and the USA.”
—Yeah, they do almost as badly as the societies that are intolerant of homosexuality.
"America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold:its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life.If we can undermine these three areas,America will collapse from within."
--- Joseph Stalin
Yes, indeed they do !
They've dubbed it, 'The Fudge Factor'
Nam Vet
>>Yeah, they do almost as badly as the societies that are intolerant of homosexuality.
Societies like Free Republic, troll?
As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-Constitution, pro-Bill of Rights, pro-gun, pro-limited government, pro-private property rights, pro-limited taxes, pro-capitalism, pro-national defense, pro-freedom, and-pro America. We oppose all forms of liberalism, socialism, fascism, pacifism, totalitarianism, anarchism, government enforced atheism, abortionism, feminism, homosexualism, racism, wacko environmentalism, judicial activism, etc.
Police Commissioner Hans von Tresckow, who served in Berlin during the years that Hitler was on the streets in Munich and Vienna, wrote the following in his memoirs:One of the worst features of homosexualism is that it gives rise to an enormous amount of male prostitution. Many persons who are perfectly normal find it a lucrative though disgraceful trade. In Berlin there are many centers where homosexualists make the acquaintances of accomplices who will serve their requirements. And there are many cafés and taverns which are frequented almost exclusively by such people. The police are powerless to put down this practice, because they require legal authorization to interfere. My experience is that male prostitution has been steadily increasing for some decades past and cases of blackmail are becoming more numerous accordingly; for a person who goes in for this profession is almost always a blackmailer. (Treschow in Lively:18).
--from The Pink Swastika, chapter 5
Tyranny of the Appetite, comrade.
SO uch for the “Selfish Gene”.
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