| Michael-5 said: Bold1: explain to me how that works. From what I learned in bio, fitness is the driving force behind evolution. |
Yes. But you only seem to know the individual fitness. A population has also a fitness. Both are important for evolution. So even if an individual dies for a group, this is a positive evolutionary effect if it helps that the others of the group live and it is likely the others share most of the genes the dying individual had. That is the fitness of a population, and it is of importance to evolution.
You should read 'The selfish gene' from Dawkins, he is pretty good in explaining the evolutionary forces.
| Michael-5 said: Bold2: 100% False, most random mutations are detremental, and usually get phased out with evolution (individuals with a lower fitness die off before they can reproduce). Very few are advantages. Mutations, are far more common then you realise. |
I'm not a native english speaker and you only took out part of the sentence. You understand me completely wrong. I'm aware most mutation are a disadvantage. I'm aware, that these disadvantuous mutations will be removed fast from the gene-pool through selection. That's what I mean. The conclusion of it is, because we can discover homosexuality in many species it is either an evolutionary advantage or something that is not inheritable but instead produced by environment.
| Michael-5 said: Bold3: Exactly, the mutation is not inheritable. |
You are not up to date. Twin-studies show a strong indication, that homosexuality has at least a genetic component.
This is in german, sorry: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/DEUTSCH/DIAMOND.HTM#12
| Michael-5 said: Bold3: Exactly, the mutation is not inheritable. Do you need a reason for why it happens so regularly in humans? Here's one, it doesn't. Homosexuality rates are no higher then the non inheritable biological disorder of schizophrenea, which is about 1% the World Population, and significantly loweer then the non inheritable biological disorder of Depression, which is about 2.8%. |
I don't know much about the frequency of homosexuality in humans. But neither do you. Or anyone. The data from surveys shows big variability, depending on the way the questions in the survey are asked, the cultural backgraund, laws against homosexuality and so on. We pretty much don't know how common homosexuality is under humans.
But I was talking mainly about the fact, that homosexuality occurs in many species. We discovered homosexual behaviour in over 1500 species. If it is really a disorder and has some disadvante in evolutionary terms, the evolution would have redued the chance, even if homosexuality itself wouldn't be inheritable. We don't have genes for illnesses that are infectious. But evolution gave us an immune system to defend us against such illnesses. Same would have happened for homosexuality, if it is really a disadvantage.
But as written above, there is some inheritable aspect. That pretty much guarantees, that homosexuality is an evolutionary advantage for a population.
| Michael-5 said: Are you against curing Disorders? |
Wait what? No, I don't want to cure brown eyes, red hair, black skin or homosexuality. Again, Homosexuality is of evolutionary advantage for a population (or saying it different: it increases the fitness of a population), so why should it be a disorder?
