One evolutionary hypothesis that does have empirical support is antagonistic plieotropy, whereby a gene decreases the fitness of certain carriers of the gene, while improving that of others. Specifically, a gay gene could decrease the fitness of male carriers, but increase the fitness of female carriers (sisters, mothers, aunts). (Camperio Ciani and Corna, 2002, 14th meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society; see Putz, 2003 , Human sexuality. Dubuque, Iowa:Kendall Hunt.)
Still a puzzle, but in my moderately informed opinion, probably not having any evolutionary advantage.
don
Donald McBurney
Rick Adams wrote:
Rick Froman wrote:
To which I ask a question which is probably totally misinformed but has occasionally occurred to me:Not if the gene is sex linked and passed by the mother rather than by the father.
From an evolutionary point of view, if a homosexual orientation is at least partly due to genetic transmission (and not to mutation), and if homosexuals didn't have to have sham marriages with children to be accepted in society, wouldn't there eventually be less persons with a homosexual orientation since they would not be passing the relevant genetic contribution on to the next generation? Might that not also apply to societies that have been open to homosexuality for many generations (the number of persons with a homosexual orientation would be smaller in societies that had more openness to toward those with a homosexual orientation)? Of course, as many have noted, there is a continuum and there would still be bisexuals having children but it still seems like a more open attitude toward homosexuality would lead to a smaller proportion of those with a homosexual orientation within society. It seems that I may have heard someone address this theory before but I don't remember what the gist of the argument was. Thanks,
From an evolutionary perspective, the existence of a "gay gene" is pro-survival with respect to the tribe (which, of course, is a kinship group). During the early transition from a hunter/gatherer culture to an agrarian one men normally left the women alone for long periods of time while they hunted food. The problem was, if no males remained to defend the group, the women were often captured (and the male children killed) by other tribes and the males returned to find an empty village. This, of course, prevented them from propagating their genes. On the other hand, if they left some of their numbers to guard the women, those members would be the ones whose genes were propagated and the hunters would return to find a village of pregnant women. Neither was pro-survival for the tribe as a whole or for the individual hunters. Having a percentage of the male population homosexual solves that problem, however. A homosexual male is as physically able to defend the territory and protect the women as a heterosexual man is. But unlike the heterosexual, he has no motivation to propagate his own genes by impregnating the women. Thus the hunters could return to find their women and male children still present and were able to propagate their genes unhindered as a result. What's interesting is the fact that it would require approximately 5% to 10% of the male population to remain in order to insure that adequate protection existed, and current studies place the homosexual population (cross culturally--it doesn't appear to matter if a culture has taboos concerning homosexuality or not) in that range as well.
Or, of course, modern male homosexuality may simply be a group response to a subconscious worship of the power of the tobacco industry and a cigar may really NOT be just a cigar . . . ;-)
Rick
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