My go-to link for countering "<insert sexual practice> is unnatural" was [1], this article seems like a great one to add to the arsenal :).
That's not to say I believe human behaviour should somehow be judged by finding equivalents in the animal kingdom (what a silly concept!), it's just fun to point out to someone that even their ridiculous point is technically incorrect.
> it's just fun to point out to someone that even their ridiculous point is technically incorrect.
What's ridiculous is looking to the animal kingdom to judicate what's normal for human homosexuality in either direction. Lots of mammals eat their young, I wouldn't use this as evidence to normalize infant cannibalism.
Just as importantly, science is always open to revision. You have to be careful how you use science in informing your morals for that reason.
If in ten years, this research into animal sexuality was show to be falsified, misinterpreted, or just not representative of a wide range of nature, would you then decide human homosexuality is morally wrong?
That's the real risk of taking something which should be more of a moral axiom and claiming it derives from science and nature; you risk having it overturned in the future.
It doesn't mean that you can't make statements that are always true (today, tomorrow, in a hundred years, etc).
Once something is discovered and we understand the limits of the model, it is true forever e.g., Newton's laws under appropriate assumptions (not too fast, not much mass).
Yeah, but most social sciences are nowhere near the standards that physics imposes on what it holds to be true.
That's not a flack. It's inherent to the nature of the social sciences. Since every individual is part of a complex social system, it's incredibly hard to make repeatable experiments to test assumptions in the same way that physicists do every day for breakfast.
The comment you're replying to literally called it a silly concept. Their point was that, in addition to being silly, it also doesn't even support the position of those who typically invoke it.
I get your point but this seems to also be an argument in bad faith. The point is to show that it is likely that homosexuality is more innate than "a choice" or something you can catch, for the purposes of informing our moral judgements.
"innate" is another word for natural; they have the same root. That doesn't even matter for the question of whether homosexuality is beneficial or moral. Completely orthogonal questions.
As a gay person myself I agree conceptually, but it is hard to back the "even if it's a choice what do you care" argument when discussing something that from my perspective is so obviously and irrefutably not a choice.
I liken it to saying that someone shouldn't be judged by having a face tattoo, because it is a personal choice that affects no one negatively. In practice however people with face tattoos are judged pretty harshly, and in a way that people with alopecia or facial birth marks are not, specifically because choices carry moral weight.
Another issue is that the choice argument comes with a lot of baggage for people who take it to mean that I am somehow intentionally upending what would otherwise be a lovely, traditional family with 2.3 kids and a dog because I chose to fraternize with men instead, but that since it is a choice it is also one I could undo at any time (see gay conversion therapy).
In a baysian mindset, I could have the hypothesis that homosexuality in humans is innate. At this point in time I have no proirs so I think the chances are 50/50.
After gathering additional evidence that other animals "natuarlly" have same sex relations, that should shift the needle for me some amount in one direction, seeing as how I do not believe humans to be "more" but just differently evolved, and having evolved on the same planet in a complex web of species divergence with these other animals.
I think concordance of homosexuality in identical twins is something like 30%, which is... incredibly low. The argument that it's innate isn't on strong ground at all.
Wait, if twins got the same type of cancer at a 30% rate we would definitely consider a genetic factor. When you say "innate" that can mean many things, do you wish to elaborate?
The comment I responded to contrasts "innate" phenomena with "a choice" or "something you can catch". I think the argument is very strong that homosexuality (as an inclination) is not "a choice" -- people don't decide on what they want. And 30% concordance for identical twins is much, much higher than the concordance for random strangers drawn from the same broad demographic pool, so it's clear that there is genetic influence in a sense.
But it's also clear that there is not genetic influence in the ordinary sense that most people will imagine if you say a trait is genetic. Compare the question "is this person gay?" to "does this person speak French?" --
Can we predict whether a person speaks French just by looking at their DNA? Yes.
How good will the prediction be? Decent. French is mostly spoken by people in countries where French is the language of daily life. There is noise from a few sources: some people are naturally attracted to learning languages; some countries are more recent than others and the genetics of their residents are less informative; some countries have an imperfect layer of French on top of some other language(s). (You can easily identify a Frenchman by looking at his genes. It's harder to identify a French-speaking Canadian in Quebec that way. And it's much harder to identify a Vietnamese collaborator family that way.)
There is a genetic influence (in the intuitive sense) on whether you speak French. I mentioned it above -- some people are inclined towards learning languages. Within any given non-Francophone population, those people are more likely to speak French than everyone else is. But the very weak genetic signal amounts to nearly nothing because it is overwhelmed by very powerful environmental influence. If your parents speak only French, and everyone you ever meet speaks French, you will speak French too. And if none of the above is true, you're unlikely to speak French even if you might like to do so in the abstract.
So the fact that you can predict French-speaking from a person's genetics is mostly spurious -- it comes from the fact that genetics and French-speaking coincide without much direct influence of one on the other. The concordance of French-speaking in identical twins is much higher than 30% -- it is nearly 100%, despite the fact that the trait is not much influenced by genetics, because identical twins almost always grow up in the same country. And this is for an entirely non-genetic trait! Where a trait is genetically determined, you would see similar concordance levels -- since identical twins have the same genetics, their concordance on genetically-determined traits must be close to 100%. Studies of identical twins raised apart always find that a twin pair coincides on a creepily large number of apparently inconsequential behaviors, like habitually wearing seven rings. They should coincide more on very consequential behaviors such as refusal to breed.
30% concordance is so low as to preclude the idea that genetics is causing the one twin to be homosexual. It suggests instead that genetics is giving both twins a weakness, but a minor enough weakness that even when one twin succumbs the other twin usually stays healthy. There are two models that could match this:
- Homosexuality might strike at random, like radioactive decay. Genetics set the odds of it happening to you, and every day God rolls the dice to see whether you suddenly become gay.
- Homosexuality might be transmissible ("something you can catch"). Genetics set the odds of your successfully resisting infection.
The first option could reasonably be described as "innate". It cannot, however, be described as "born that way", which as I understand it is the argument that people are making when they say that homosexuality is innate. 30% concordance in identical twins conclusively demonstrates that homosexuals are not born that way. An adult's homosexuality is not specified by their genes -- it is a failure state to which their genes left them more or less vulnerable, and which needs some kind of trigger (possibly chance).
Summing up:
We were given three options: that homosexuality is "a choice", "innate", or "something you can catch".
As you note, "innate" is not particularly well defined. Neither is "a choice". But we can still reject the "choice" option pretty easily. From a common sense perspective, it is clear that people don't choose their wants. And the MZ twin concordance rate is too low -- where identical twins get to make choices, they generally make the same choices.
While "innate" can mean several things, it is very often used to mean an "intentional" effect of the genes, a body that faithfully executes its genetic plan (regardless of whether that plan is good or bad). (This isn't well-defined either, sadly.) The MZ twin concordance rate is much too low to support this for homosexuality. It is also used to mean an effect which will manifest regardless of circumstance. This is easy to reject, as there are no such phenomena. But with a more liberal interpretation of "regardless of circumstance", we can rule this out too.
I don't think anything discussed here is evidence for or against the idea that homosexuality is "something you can catch".
I will also note that this trichotomy fails to include some obvious types of causes. If, say, a rock falls on your arm and you lose the arm, I think that's better characterized as an "environmental shock" than as a disease, a genetic effect, an "innate" effect, or a choice, even though there is genetic and "choice" influence on the event. I tend to agree that 30% MZ twin concordance is too high for the environmental shock model to make sense in the US context.
But as I said above, the evidence in favor of "innate" as an explanation is not very good.
Murder, infanticide, rape, torture (parasitic wasps, ugh) are all natural. Appeal to nature is only compelling if you believe in happy-fun Disney 'nature'.
Right, if we only measure what's "natural" by what exists in the broader animal kingdom than anything uniquely human (commerce, religion, science, a written language, morality, philosophy, etc.) would appear to be "unnatural".
I have no scientific rigor for this, but the possibility for relationships that do not bear offspring makes a ton of evolutionary sense.
By including homosexuality into a species, you have members who are able to gather and process energy without contributing to population growth. Population growth is a good thing, but too much is detrimental to the species (at least if you don't have access to agriculture). In addition, if the species is a social species, you can have richer communities without the burden of additional offspring, including non-binary genders (as primitive gender roles need not apply to homosexual members). This is especially true for humans, as our offspring is unusually vulnerable for an unusually extended time. Include adoption into the equation, and your species would have a bank of potential parents for abandoned (due to death or otherwise) offspring: in humans, bearing offspring is risky and consumes a lot of energy. Evolutionary speaking, it's not a good thing if all the energy expended in that newborn is left to waste.
The possibility of homosexuality is mathematically optimal and it is therefore a deeply natural phenomenon. You don't even need to look at the animal kingdom, it's right there in nature (assuming I'm correct, but I think my argument is compelling).
Natural selection happens at the gene level. A behavior has to beneficial to the gene or genes that cause it for it to propagate via natural selection. It’s hard to model homosexuality as anything other than detrimental to the gene or genes that contribute to it. The only model that accounts for this would be if homosexuality is an occasional side effect of some other traits or behaviors that increase fertility.
Does it have to do anything with nature? For example, having sex is completely natural, but doing so in public is frowned upon. On the other hand, walking on arms upside down is completely unnatural, but perfectly acceptable in the middle of town center.
It doesn't. Many people just dislike other people having sex (and this probably is natural). They can't say anything against people doing it in accordance with the standard but as soon as something doesn't fit in the puritan template they find an excuse.
Disliking other people having Sex? — You should tell the porn industry so they adapt their business model.
Maybe people don't like to be watched, but I think there is a string driver to also reproduce and for men to put one's semen, ideally replacing the other man's.
>You should tell the porn industry so they adapt their business model.
Where have you been the last 50+ years? Porn has been and continues to be under constant attack by society. In the United States, even the First Amendment hasn't been as solid a defense as its wording would make it seem for pornographic works, and some states still have laws on the books banning "obscene devices" (though admittedly sex toys aren't speech)
People don't like others having sex, don't like knowing about it (unless they themselves are horny and want to see it, but heaven forbid anyone else be allowed the same privilege, which is the main reason you see so many anti-gay male politicians being caught in compromising positions with other men), and want to control everything about it.
There are two evolutionary reasons for this.
The first is pregnancy; and the difference between societies that have evolved without access to effective natural birth control and ones that have is as stark as you'd expect it to be.
The second is scarcity, which is related to the first thing (i.e. people weigh sex against major negative consequences if having sex can have major consequences), but can be slightly abated by a massive distribution network of pictures and videos of sex (while not the same thing, unlike physical hunger sexual appetite can be satisfied by the equivalent of simply looking at a picture of a tasty meal for a few minutes).
Modern society has only had 50 years with technology that does those two things reliably. Society at large just hasn't had enough time with these factors in play to loosen up, but the cracks are beginning to show.
I don't say monogamy is a natural rule everybody should follow but it also is not unnatural "bullshit" invented by humans. As far as I know many wild species are monogamous. Many bird species in particular. I don't mind anybody being polyamory (and even some sort of adore them for breaking a taboo) yet many people are happy in monogamy and they are not necessarily constraining themselves artificially. Also shame can hardly be considered "invented" - whenever you feel that blushing you don't invent it, it's a physical body reaction although particular reason behind usually is "invented".
Did we ever arrive at it? Even though most of us may desire lifelong partners, sexual monogamy is mostly socially-induced, not a natural instinct; indeed, social/sexual monogamy usually goes against our natural instincts.
Throughout our history, it's also mostly practiced out of necessity/pressure by the underclasses/commoners* of human society, not the rulers/leaders/wealthy.
Shame and peer pressure are also good things often. They help us collaborate and prevent us from acting selfishly. We shame those who do things like litter or steal which prevents this behaviour. If you steal from your friends you will be excluded from their social circle which is enough reason to not do it.
These are typically cultures also where men have few choices. There is probably no way that a sustainable advantage of one sex over the other, in a reproductive sense, could be maintained by evolution.
People like sex. They don't accept public obscenity usually due to common sense objective realities, i.e. children being present.
So there is this.
And there is some more: as a dominant bdsm heterosexual person for some reason I don't feel an urge to present my sexual preference to the whole world all the time and demanding the public to accept it. Or even having it recognized as part of my "identity". Sex is sex, happens in bed with my wife and is between us. Why in the world I would have a need to demand my friends, family, co-workers to have them accept the reality that I like to see blood on my wife's butt before I slide between them --- this is silly. Isn't that this piece where homosexuals are just so oblivious that they simply don't recognize that the whole world doesn't neccessarily care about them putting the thing in another guys anus? Why do we need to have parades about that? Why do we need special laws for the condition? Am I going to get treated differently during employment process next time because I'm into bdsm? I mean that are idiots who say yes, bdsm is just another sexual preference. So I would be sexual minority. And would be need it so much more at places like Google or Apple to fullfil some idiotic quota. Good job America you guys are beyond hilarious! Anthropologist in the future will have bunch of a good time looking at you! And please don't downvote that would be pure nazism. I mean where are we going with this?
> People like sex. They don't accept public obscenity usually due to common sense objective realities, i.e. children being present.
I accept this element of culture unconditionally and don't feel any interest in violating it so I am not going to expose children (mine or other) to sexual scenes ever.
However, although there may happen to be some (so why risk), I really fail to see reason behind it. Why is it considered bad for children to see people having sex? Especially when it's about non-violent "classic" sex between "normal" people loving each other and treating each other tenderly and not any kind of hardcore BDSM porn. I understand some particular kinds of sexual practices can seem weird and even shock some people yet what makes "vanilla" sex obscene and potentially harmful for a person (a kid or whoever) psyche is beyond my comprehension.
> I don't feel an urge to present my sexual preference to the whole world all the time and demanding the public to accept it. Or even having it recognized as part of my "identity". Sex is sex, happens in bed with my wife and is between us.
I support this point, yet...
... I was going to copy-paste-quote the next part but the message got flagged. The next was the question why seek others to be aware of your sexual preferences and accept them. I believe the answer is so they won't get "shocked" once they find out accidentally and nobody will be able to blackmail you. The the current state of culture makes it matter. Once everybody accepts everything is normal exposing your sexual preferences proactively will become irrelevant.
Come on, we all know there are right minorities and there are wrong minorities.
But jokes aside, one possible explanation is that despite of all your sexual life, for the outside observer you still look like a "vanilla" couple (sorry, I assumed your gender here). You can show up at your kids school together, you can go to the Christmas party with your colleagues and none will say a word.
I think for gay couples it may be different: from weird looks to outright refusal.
And as for downvotes... Don't let me even start...
Entire societies and cultures have been built around the idea that sex is unnatural and requires special rituals and public approval to be had, and even then you're not supposed to actually enjoy it.
> I predict in the future this distinction will be extremely common
It’s very common in sexual health because “men who have sex with other men” is much more useful when reasoning about disease spread than peoples wide gamut of self-reported sexual orientations.
The same can be said about heterosexual sex. How do you know people are “attracted to the opposite sex” when they really just “have sex with the opposite sex.”
I don't typically have sex with things I'm not attracted to... And even if psychologically my sexual impulse seems different from that of an animal's, it's biologically the same.
Many people do have sex with people they're not attracted to, and many people do not have sex with people they are attracted to. The distinction is useful.
The article you linked mentioned the term was coined during the rise of the AIDS/HIV epidemic when we needed to statistically account for men who had sex with other men but whom did not feel comfortable identifying with the words "gay" or "bisexual".
I'm personally in the camp that if you have sex with genders outside the opposite of your own, then you're either gay or bisexual. I don't differentiate between whether you're attracted to the same sex or just seriously, uncontrollably horny and desperate to shag anything with an orifice.
I guess I still don't see the relevance of a distinction beyond that of psycho-semantics.
I guess I define sexuality in the proper literal sense as "Who you have sex with" vs "Who you find attractive. Because when framed that way, attractive becomes subjectively defined.
Sexually attractive? Well yes, if you're humping it you find it sexually attractive.
Psychologically attractive? Only if you have some kind of complex against being labeled 'homosexual' or 'bisexual' while still engaging in coutius with other people of the same sex.
Emotionally/Intellectually attractive? Well, personally I don't find myself sexually attracted to people (and in effect, things) whom I can't satisfactorily engage with on an intellectual and emotional level. I know some people are different and will fuck anything that moves. I've had people tell me so themselves. But I don't think the "Men Who Have Sex With Men" label discusses intellectual stimulation as a stipulation.
Differentiating the facts from speculations and of the projections of our perceptions and experiences as a species onto other species?
Who am I to say why an animal who's mind I have no insight into is having sex? I wouldn't even dare to begin supposing pretending I have any idea of what's going on in an octopus' mind(s).
(Although I did once read a fascinating fiction on some blog about exactly that. Can't find it now)
Serious question: does anyone know how are homosexual monkeys treated by their peers? Basically, I was wondering if there is a proof of them being discriminated/treated badly by their peers.
Unfortunately, I've seen documentaries and been to zoos where the zoo keepers have told us that homosexual moneys are subjected to violence. I think the brunt of it is against male monkeys making sexual advances towards an unwilling male partner.
I don’t know who badgerigar is, but his comment was flagged and killed, even though it is scientifially correct.
Although animals have been observed to have same-sex coupling, they mix it up with males and females. In the animal kingdom the only species that have been observed to have exclusively homosexual sex are humans and domesticated sheep. One would think that a sexual organism never having heterosexual sex would be a huge evolutionary fitness disadvantage, and such a trait would be extremely uncommon. There are some caveats, for example: Sharks are able to reproduce asexually, and frogs can “switch” genders AFTER reproduction, during adverse conditions. But lifelong homosexuality has not been observed in species other than humans and domesticated sheep, which suggests that relaxed evolutionary pressures may be a necessary component.
From Wikipedia
Simon LeVay introduced caveat that "[a]lthough homosexual behavior is very common in the animal world, it seems to be very uncommon that individual animals have a long-lasting predisposition to engage in such behavior to the exclusion of heterosexual activities. Thus, a homosexual orientation, if one can speak of such thing in animals, seems to be a rarity."[8] One species in which exclusive homosexual orientation occurs, however, is that of domesticated sheep (Ovis aries).[9][10] "About 10% of rams (males), refuse to mate with ewes (females) but do readily mate with other rams."[10]
> One would think that a sexual organism never having heterosexual sex would be a huge evolutionary fitness disadvantage
Genes do not "care" for individual organisms. If they did we would be immortal. Jared Diamond argued that the presence of homosexual uncles/aunts is the same kind of an advantage as the presence of no-longer-breeding grandparents.
The key difference between a gay aunt or uncle and a no longer reproducing grandparent is that the grandparent has already reproduced.
Also, if homosexuality is a strategy for childcare, why do homosexual relatives contribute so little to their nieces and nephews? And if it is a successful strategy, why does it occur at such a low prevalence?
There are no homosexual monkeys. While nearly all mammalian species have homosexual sex, homosexual individuals have only been observed in sheep and humans.
discrimination is a purely human thing. animals see sex and reproduction as a leisure activity, and as a result, don't nearly give it as much though as much as humans do. Plus they don't have the bible, which can be interpreted as not allowing for homosexual relations.
Really? If you took an animal and shaved it, you don’t think it would be ostracized even though nothing is wrong with it and it has no impact on its peers? I’d bet it would.
I’m sure animals do it based on behavior as well. If a peer is acting sick (even if not), I’m sure their behavior changes.
Sorry about the blogspam link. I have seen more reputable articles about chimpanzees with alopecia, but my search skills are failing me now. The gist always seems to be that hairless chimpanzees (there have been several in zoos) aren't treated differently by others.
I am always so torn when people make the argument that homosexuality is natural and therefore okay.
It relies on the naturalistic fallacy which I don't like, but it also shuts down people who make the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore bad, which I do like.
Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
> Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
This is so important and so regularly gets ignored by people on all sides. Once, a long time ago, I was talking to a much-smarter-than-me gay friend about the gay marriage debate in the US, and I said that being gay wasn't a choice and that _therefore_ yada yada. He said the only thing that in hindsight ever really matters, though at the time I'd never heard anyone say it before. He said "So what if it were a choice? What exactly does that change? You can't choose who to spend your life with? You can't choose who to share resources with? You can't choose who gets to be your proxy? Why is choice not important?"
The motivation behind the "it's not a choice" argument is that society can't reasonably enforce a rule that people can't follow. For example you and I are against Down's syndrome, but we can't make any progress by telling people to stop having it. Your friend's argument would not work at all against people who are against homosexuality, because their answer to all of those questions would simply be "no." The "it's not a choice" argument only makes sense if you put yourself into the shoes of the other side and ask the question "given the resources I have, how could I conclude that gay marriage was acceptable?"
This is more or less correct, though the relevant scriptural passages put more shape and nuance on it.
As for why that should influence our votes for public policy, the reasoning goes that sin always brings trouble, death, and non-well-being to society, therefore influencing public policy away from sinful societal patterns and acts is one important way to love one’s neighbors, since it will result in greater well-being for them.
Right, people are talking about what's spiritually natural. Talking about what's biologically natural is just missing the point.
Also, why do you feel the Christian sacred texts doesn't really condemn homosexuality? I feel you have to do a lot of extra-textual analysis and theory-crafting to reach that perspective, so it's no surprise that Christians in general don't buy that idea.
It's been a while, but IIRC, the Bible only condemns homosexual sex specifically. The concepts of "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" are modern inventions. Many ancient cultures (such as the Greeks) saw no conflict between their ideals of what we would consider "straight" sexuality and homosexual relationships.
And... it also condemns masturbation, marrying foreigners, eating fish, letting menstruating women inside the city limits and mixing fabrics.
Someone living in Biblical times probably wouldn't have any concept of someone being "straight" or "gay," just of someone following cultural norms or violating cultural taboos. So to say the Bible condemns homosexuality is a misappropriation of the intent of the text outside of the cultural and temporal context to which it was intended to apply.
I don't normally do this, but I believe it's very relevant:
This comment you're reading has a dead sibling that pointed out the commonly-held Christian doctrine that some of the Bible's laws don't apply to modern Christians.
The commenter is absolutely correct, and here is a link from a famous and well-regarded theologian on the subject (R.C Sproul).
In summary, there are civil, ceremonial, and moral laws in the Old Testament. For example, "no murder" is a moral law, while dietary restrictions are a ceremonial law.
I'm not commenting on the validity or "correctness" of this doctrine, as I am not a theologian. I just think it's worth confirming that this is something a lot of Christians believe.
There's a NT-only argument against homosexuality that derives the prohibition from the general ban on adultery, combined with the definition of marriage as man + woman.
In general, NT has plenty of stuff that can be appropriated for fire-and-brimstone preaching. Most of it is Paul's, which is why some consider Pauline Christianity to be a mutilation of what was preached before.
Paul was a moralizing moron, and he only gets such top billing in NT (and TBH, even considered some sort of apostle at all [0]) because NT was compiled by fellow moralizing morons. Anyone who has done any critical reading in any other context has seen Paul in the proper light and already tuned him right out. Readings from any of Paul's 47 letters are naptime for me.
[0] never met Christ, so he had to pretend he had some sort of vision to get in the club... Jesus treated the money changers better than He would have treated Paul.
> it also condemns masturbation, marrying foreigners, eating fish, letting menstruating women inside the city limits and mixing fabrics.
There is a very convenient Christian doctrine where there are "three types of law in the Bible", which explains that some rules are meant for Israelites and some are meant for everyone (and you [or the church] basically get to guess which apply to you).
The Old Testament is there for context. It's not a matter of guessing or choosing, and the decision was made early on not to force non-hebrews to follow Old Testament law (meant specifically for Israelites) if they joined up.
It’s perhaps a digression, but where does the Bible condemn masturbation? The verses that are commonly-cited (at least in my experience, which is mostly among Protestants) are pretty clearly grasping at straws.
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
So ironically if homosexuality IS a sin; then these are the people Jesus came for, spent time with, and calls
Tax collectors in this context refers to Jews who consorted with Romans to effectively extort from their own countrymen
> When you say "homosexuality" do you mean homosexual proclivities, or homosexual acts? It's an important nuance. For example, Judiasm/Christianity/Islam teaches...
Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”
He says it is bad to desire something bad. This isn't playng with nuance. Slightly later he says: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” A tough call, but then the writer of half the NT was a hater and murderer of Chrstians -- Acts 9 describes how he met Jesus and was accepted/forgiven
> And... it also condemns masturbation, marrying foreigners, eating fish, letting menstruating women inside the city limits and mixing fabrics.
* Masturbation: I'm not sure where this could be from
* Fish: "Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat." (Leviticus 11)
Etc. But actually we are both being anti-biblical here. Sure, there are detailed and unusual laws, but God frequently and directly asks people to focus on other things:
“But give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.”
Or Jesus: “Woe to you [religious teachers]. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law--justice, mercy, and faithfulness.”
And many more... To be wrapped up in the law of what is right or wrong --even homosexuality-- is to 100% miss what the Bible teaches
“If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” (Galatians 2)
Could the argument be made that in the New Testament, it's not necessarily homosexual activity that is condemned, but rather it's the act of emasculating a man. The criticism against the Romans was that they were laying with men as they would woman, which at the time would mean to rob a man of something absolutely sacrosanct. 2000 years of history, and a lot of progress on the front of women's equality (probably not enough still), and it seems less of an issue for two consenting adults to engage in homosexual activity, whereas in Roman society, could a slave, or a man of lesser status truly consent to a homosexual relationship?
It always read to me that it was more about turning men into women than it was about actually performing homosexual acts.
When you say "homosexuality" do you mean homosexual proclivities, or homosexual acts? It's an important nuance.
Judiasm/Christianity/Islam teaches that humans have a proclivity to sin (fallen nature), but God commands them to not sin, i.e. to act ccontrary to their nature.
There is no theological contradiction (or least, not anymore than normal) between natural homosexuals and God forbidding homosexual acts.
EDIT: The actual consequence of natural homosexuality is a difference of understanding. Birth condition vs self-inflicted. "Crack baby" vs "crack head".
> But if that's true, homosexuality can't be a sin, because sin is always a choice.
Not if you believe in total depravity combined with unconditional election. Which just happens to be the cornerstone dogmas of one very popular Christian denomination.
> The motivation behind the "it's not a choice" argument is that society can't reasonably enforce a rule that people can't follow
I understand what you mean, but it doesn't seem to be the case. In regards to sexual preferences, for example, there are some that are, arguably, not a choice either, and still are considered absolutely forbidden.
> For example you and I are against Down's syndrome, but we can't make any progress by telling people to stop having it.
Nope, that would be ridiculous. But at the same time having Down's syndrome is not devoid of legal consequences. You'll probably be denied a driving license or the possibility to own guns, and you can argue as much as you want that your condition is perfectly natural and you didn't have a choice, it won't make any difference.
Having moved on from biblical interpretations, sexual preferences are usually considered absolutely forbidden if participants can't give informed adult consent. So - voyeurism, anything involving children and animals, and so on.
There doesn't seem to be much evidence that sexuality can be changed by conscious choice. So if your sexuality runs along those lines you're going to have a bad time, because you'll either have to repress your urges, or risk actions that damage others, possibly with criminal consequences.
The edge cases of this can become ridiculous - but still tragic. E.g. there are people who are primarily turned on by paving stones and/or drain covers.
It's not really obvious what "natural" means in this context. Is this imprinting? Genetics? Something else? There aren't any good answers. Criminal law does the best it can with them, but it's not clear that choice really applies, and criminal punishment is pointless and ineffective anyway - either as a deterrent or as rehabilitation.
The bigger moral question is maybe why some social groups seem obsessed with what they consider sexual deviance - including their beliefs about homosexuality - while apparently ignoring other moral and social questions.
What is the psychological process that turns homosexuality into a uniquely disturbing moral problem for them, while other hot-button issues - poverty, diet, government and corporate corruption, take your pick from a long list - are relatively uninteresting for them?
Sex is personal, visceral, and highly emotionally charged, while the other concerns you mentioned can easily stay abstract. There's no mystery there, people are just obsessed with sex. It's another side of the phenomenon by which any idea at all can be made into a sexual innuendo. It's where our mind goes.
This seems to be conceding ground that shouldn't be given, though. One of the underlying principles of liberal government is that the government needs to justify any and all restrictions placed on the people. The mirror image of this, is that people don't need any particular reason for doing something.
He argues for gay marriage and the right to an abortion substantially on the basis of limited government. The existing regulations are often substantially motivated by religion, which is contrary to the establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...") -- and outside of these motivations the government has not proffered any credible reasons for regulation.
In short, there is no reason for the gay community to prove anything; the government has no reason for its regulations, or at best reasons proffered in bad faith.
With regards to Professor Bedi's over-arching philosophy, of focusing on reasons, I do have some reservations. In particular, I wonder how he proposes to limit government with only this focus. Just the same, in this case he argues clearly and well, that putting the onus on gay people to prove they deserve the right to marry is a strange place to start from, if we are starting from within a framework of limited government.
It must never be seen as a choice. The answer to all those questions can easily be yes. Society regularly denies people the ability to do things that they feel should be their choice, and it is considered acceptable in some cases that the only recourse for those people should just be to make another choice. The power of choice invites judgement. The homosexual community has a strong distaste for bisexuals because their existence undermines the argument that no one chooses to be homosexual.
Your friend should not repeat that argument in a debate again.
>The homosexual community has a strong distaste for bisexuals because their existence undermines the argument that no one chooses to be homosexual.
No they don't, and no it doesn't. Bisexuals aren't people who "choose" to be gay one minute and "choose" to be straight the next. Rather, they are attracted to both genders, just as homosexuals are attracted to the same gender, and heterosexuals are attracted to the opposite gender.
I think people are talking past each other when discussing "unnaturalness". Opponents of homosexuality often use the word "unnatural" in the sense of "not in humankind's nature". This is distinct from "unnatural" as "not occurring in nature".
The argument is more like "eating dirt is okay for earthworms, but it's unnatural for humans", so appeal to the behavior of other animals completely misses the point.
This is a profoundly metaphysical debate about the nature of a life well-lived and the nature of a healthy society. Whatever one thinks of it, that's the level on which it ought to be discussed.
It should be made clear that "unnaturalness", when used by opponents of homosexuality (and in many other debates of moralistic kind), is used in a question-begging way which carries no information at all and is nothing more than a shorthand for "I don't like it and I think it's bad". But, alas, it does sound like it has some meaning beyond that, which is why it's used in debates in a first place.
I think they're talking about spiritual aberration, and not merely what's biologically common for humans. By natural people mean a perspective rightness, as opposed to merely some notion of statistical frequency.
because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together
Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle. As 'presscast notes it completely misses the point of the nature of a life well-lived.
Ironically, in practice it goes against human nature. Atomized society of people passing each other indifferently is certainly freer in some sense but it's also lonely and depressing for many of its members. It goes directly against our most basic needs for social belonging.
The modern emphasis on individualism is understandable as a reaction to the collectivism of the past. But as usual, we over-corrected. So now we're entering a period of reaction against individualism. We'll almost certainly over-correct again, but it won't be as severe. "Progress" is not a straight line, it's an attenuated wave.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights in at least one well-known country. Being able to bang who you want (assuming they feel the same way) presumably falls under the third?
>>because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together
>Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle.
that is a circular argument as morals are the behaviors that society allows consenting adults to engage in.
Wrt. [un]naturality based arguments - there is nothing natural about humans using smartphones, flying in airplanes, etc. yet billions of people shamelessly engage in those unnatural activities everyday. We're way past natural... Why are we so hellbent about whether it is natural or unnatural of how some people enjoy each other company?
I think, however, general understanding that homosexuality is something a person is 'born with' -- had huge impact on policies and public debate around legalizing homosexual marriages.
Being born with it, rather than a choice -- meant that unfair treatment of homosexuals was morally equivalent to race/ethnic origin based prosecutions.
Therefore, civil rights accomplishments, and modern legal framework resulting from those -- would apply to homosexuals.
If 'being born with' would not have been recognized as scientific truth, then homosexual marriages would likely be treated the same as consenting adult polygamists.
I think this is one of reasons why non-binary people having hard time being recognized in same policy/morality structures as homosexual people.
> Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
Having had the same sort of thought, I believe what I was reacting to was the feeling that this idea seemed just slightly too convenient to be the result of entirely open-ended inquiry.
But then again I have seen the terrible devastation that was brought upon some less fortunate friends when they realised they were gay: teenagers driven into isolation (and, once, suicide) by their former "friends"; beloved members of their respective communities and/or families having to start from scratch, just because those communities happened to be "conservative".
I'm having a hard time believing anybody would choose such suffering with anything approaching a sensible definition of the term "free choice".
It's also important to remember that "born that way" is mostly just the headline of a more complex story of how sexuality is understood, one that even progressive activists wouldn't oppose. This sees homo/hetero-sexuality not as a binary choice, but as a spectrum. There's a set point you're born with. Then there's an overlay of culture–just think how much more acceptable it is for women to kiss than it is for men. Finally, there is some wiggle room any individual may experience over the span of their lives, or even just the span of a day given the right intoxicating substances.
This doesn't contradict the idea of inborn sexual orientation, because (see above) cultural and experiential factors are almost definitely not able to overcome biology for many. But it may help to overcome any cognitive dissonance you feel.
>we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together
When does "by default" become "actually, no, that's bad and even consenting adults shouldn't do that"? If you want to take a strong position that there should be no such thing as a victimless crime, then that's coherent and valid - but if you want to hedge with "by default", I think you have to provide a stronger framework why this thing is okay and that thing isn't. You still have to say something pragmatic like "homosexuality has no documented negative social effects".
(Although personally, I do think that the very idea of a victimless crime is suspect - while some behaviors between consenting adults do have unambiguously negative consequences, criminalizing actions for their invisible second-order effects seems to often cause other, nastier second-order effects. But it's certainly up for debate - applying this rigorously would mean e.g. legalizing all drugs, which is a difficult sell.)
> I think you have to provide a stronger framework why this thing is okay and that thing isn't.
I don't think this is abstract ethical argument, but practical argument about policy. So we don't have to provide any stronger framework. Whoever wishes to argue that something is not OK has to provide detailed arguments backed by evidence about harm that is being produced and demonstrate that someone non-consenting is actually suffering from that harm (even if the effects are second-order). And the burden of proof needs to be significant.
Starting from "allowed by default" would already be a big improvement.
> applying this rigorously would mean e.g. legalizing all drugs, which is a difficult sell
Homosexuality was also a difficult sell. That doesn't mean anything.
Whoever wishes to argue that something is not OK has to provide detailed arguments backed by evidence about harm that is being produced and demonstrate that someone non-consenting is actually suffering from that harm (even if the effects are second-order). And the burden of proof needs to be significant.
Yes, this is what limited government is about. It makes policy makers accountable to the people, not the other way around.
Because the government can not really implement a ban per se, but rather a particular policy that hopefully eliminates the harm, policy makers actually have to make a case for something and not just against something. Otherwise, it's just the government proclaiming that the world would be better off without something. In which case, let us start with war, margarine and bad coffee.
I agree, but as a gay ex-Mormon, I have seen that educating people about the (mostly) biological origin of homosexuality is the most effective way to break through people’s dogmatic shields and make them start empathizing with gay people.
The danger of assigning a biological cause is that now with CRISPR there is the argument that we should find the site(s) responsible and edit them out in future embryos. Just accepting the result without assigning a cause doesn't have this problem.
Are you predicting that CRISPR will succeed at this odious task? Or that it won't? Because either way... that would seem to settle the question, wouldn't it?
I'm not predicting either way. Nobody really knows if human homosexuality is genetic, developmental, social, or a mixture of the three. I'm saying that if it is shown to be genetic, the idea that this will help acceptance is flawed.
I think it's bad, as it opens the door for the "valid" retort of ducks being necrophiliac. Is a fallacious argument the hill we want to die on? I'd rather just support the positives of a liberal approach.
It's easy to side-step that. If someone argues that homosexuality is wrong because it's unnatural just incorporate the retort into the counter-argument: there are gay giraffes and necrophiliac ducks, and, while we're at it, lots of species that eat their own young. Do you really think we should be modeling our behavior on what is "natural"?
This debate, like most political debates that touch on philosophy, is amazing but impossible to conduct with the general public. It's the kind of thing you can only discuss with people who are already open to question certain norms.
Right in another thread is an article about a pacemaker. Almost nothing in a car, let alone in any electronic device, is untouched by human invention and chemical/physical transformation. Tradition — what "natural" ultimately amounts to — is prologue, not fate.
> I am always so torn when people make the argument that homosexuality is natural and therefore okay.
I always thought that the argument was just for the sake of proving that this natural/unnatural thing is worthless. Homosexuality is natural and nonetheless someone opposes it on the grounds that it's not. Illnesses are natural but nobody is opposed to curing people.
Anyway, it's the old observation that conservatives tend to confuse the is with the ought to be- in other words, to argue that because something is natural or common then it is morally justified and should be enforced.
I've noticed what could be an exactly opposite tendency in liberals though, and I think it's interesting: confusing the ought to be with the is. It's not used as an argument, but it seems to inform some reasoning. For example:
(these are just some examples and I'm thinking out loud, so please don't crucify me)
- there shouldn't be any racial or sexual discriminations -> there are no differences whatsoever between ethnic groups and genders;
- gay couples should be allowed to raise children -> there is absolutely no difference between a heterosexual family and a homosexual family;
- there shouldn't be rich and poors -> money can be removed from society and everybody will be equal;
It's a great observation. I think the conservative tendency feeds the liberal tendency.
Take racial differences. If any politically problematic difference between races were to be found, then a liberal will be very inclined to suppress this. Why? Because if the conservatives ever got ahold of it, they'd go "aha! racism is justified!" and there wouldn't ever be an end to it - arguing that racism is immoral is a lot harder, pragmatically, than arguing that it's simply mistaken.
I wonder if there's feedback the other way, as well. I can't immediately see the mechanism but I suspect there is one. Perhaps seeing liberalism associated with a deranged sense of reality causes people to reject it wholesale...
Why? Indeed "unnatural=bad" is pointless, there are just so many "unnatural" things people do that are considered ok (btw the mere fact they do already suggests it's not unnatural, umans are a part of nature to and they are doing something without being forced). Even simple medication or agriculture or exercising can be considered "unnatural". Besides that why can homosexuality be considered bad? I'm straight but take it as a matter of taste, males just don't feel attractive to me. I can see no reason I could take seriously. If a significant percent of homosexual acts between healthy partners would result in serious diseases or trauma I would consider this as a clue but I haven't ever read about any evidence suggesting this.
Exactly, an appeal to nature is not needed. Humans could be the only species ever observed with homosexual traits and it wouldn't make a difference when it comes to matters of whether something is ok or not.
Neither of you are wrong, but given that this is a political issue as much as it is a [insert your favorite label here] issue, I think it's a mistake to pass up an opportunity to discredit the opposing side's fallacious arguments.
"Fact X exists, therefore it is useful as evidence in debate Y."
"Should" is inherently subjective. There is not, in either principle it practice, any evidence that can answer a "should" question without reference to an established "should" presupposition. Get used to it.
Overcoming our nature, in which life is famously solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, is sort of the defining feature of humanity. The sum of everything that is not nature is referred to as "culture". It includes democracy, Shakespeare, The Simpsons, and SpaceX.
The "naturalistic fallacy" is therefore a fallacy because it proofs too much: "nature" doesn't want us to go to the moon; it doesn't want us to vaccinate; it sees absolutely no point in rewriting a browser in Rust.
Wild humans were probably social. For comparison, Chimpanzee and Bonobos are social, they live in small groups. The next human relative is Gorilla, that are social too. Orangutans too. I don't know how far we must go to find a solitary relative of humans.
(Note that all of them have very different sexual behavior.)
> [nature] doesn't want us to vaccinate
I don't know a natural example in other animal, but I'd not be surprised if there are any. There were some trick to get a natural vaccination before there were good vaccines. Just wait until there is a year with a mild version, and try to get your kids infected, so the year with a strong version they will be already immunized. (Like a "chickenpox party" that is a very stupid idea now that there are good vaccines.) For example see the early methods to get smallpox immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation
It seems strange to me to see a discussion like this conducted in terms of only one principle.
For example, consider how would we know if someone consented to being killed? And how could a consent structure for it be abused? This is where we see it bump against another important principle, that we may not deprive another person of their life without due process of law.
I don't know why you got downvoted, that thing did happen and "consenting adults" was the murderer/cannibal's defense. Another counter-example I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet is incest.
"Between consenting adults" is a necessary but unsufficient condition.
>Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
I think most are on board with that - they just can't agree on when that default should be overridden (either by making certain activity legal or more commonly by simply subjecting it to social disapproval). Such areas of contention include way more than homosexuality, e.g. prostitution, quid pro quo sexual harassment, incest, large age / maturity gaps in relationships, mental disability, bdsm, threesomes, masturbation, and porn use.
"Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together."
Including adopting children? I don't think so. I didn't grow up with a mum and I dearly wish I had.
Well, i guess the usual hatred wouldnt be there - if it were not so usefull for females to enforce contract upholding.
This pushed the third sex into church processions, where they can be threatened by the "evil hetero-men" and at the same time reassured of protection "by believers".
Dont believe me? Watch the topics in your relations that come up repeatetly. I bet you, there is a check-loop, where you will be tested for reproducable emotions regarding queers.
And of course controllability, by adhering to some other dogma. This happening subconciously, doesent make it evil. It just is. And that is the point where one has to be proud, how far we got away from that cruel, old time reality, with those chains in the head. Unfortunatly, the moment the economy dips, the old behaviour patterns rise again. Suddenly calls for "morality" get loud, as if some upper-class orgy or some harmless queer procession was to blame for all the dip in surplus. But if you step back from the social machinery it makes sense.
Basically the request for monks, priest, whatever to be drafted to the first judical caste.
Oh, how i want to be free..
Sigh, I clicked on this link and now Google Add Sense or whatever browser tracker is pushing gay dating site banners to my browser...who knew hot young Russian men wanted to meet me!?!
Is not using an ad blocker a conscious decision on your part? I just have trouble coming up with any logical reason for an even remotely technically skilled person to be risking browsing the modern web without one.
The only people I know personally who aren't using them end up immediately installing one or asking to have one installed as soon as they find out it's an option. This group typically consists of grandparents and other people who know little to nothing about the internet.
Ever browsed the Web on an Android tablet? I'm a little concerned with installing apps that require full access to my location, files and everything else that should not be shared. Maybe there is a trustworthy chrome add on that would not require all of these escalated privlages that you could suggest?
Firefox for Android allows extensions including uBlock. That's the reason that I use it on mobile: blocking all of those trackers actually improves performance.
Exclusive homosexuality is found in nearly 10% of male sheep, as well as a bunch of other species of mammals and birds.
What’s interesting with the giraffes is the really high prevalence (94%), which suggests it’s an adaptation to some form of natural selection. Even the rate of 10% would suggest an adaptive response, but the really high rate emphasizes this.
...really high prevalence (94%), which suggests it’s an adaptation...
I don't have anything to back this up scientifically, but ISTM this phenomenon doesn't have to be adaptive in and of itself, since it could be a side effect of something else that is adaptive. (Human example: getting sick from sickle cell is not adaptive, but resistance to malaria is.) TFA describes female giraffes as only occasionally fertile, and somewhat aloof even then. Perhaps it takes a real horn-dog to persist given all the rejection. Well that's nice once every two years, but what is a horn-dog to do the rest of the time? What do human horn-dogs do when placed in environments without women, like prison?
It's interesting that the inherent ungainliness of giraffes allows females to reject coitus as they choose.
Of course this is just an idea, which, even if it describes some of the male giraffes, may not describe all of them. I don't mean to suggest that homosexual giraffe sex is in any respect less important than heterosexual giraffe sex.
One way in which it could be an adaption that actually helps its bearer's genes would be as an overpopulation safety valve. Instead of the whole group starving (all of them closely related genes), pause breeding for a while? I would expect that most species that have some form of throttling reaction like that would apply the brakes to female fertility because that is also relevant for individual survival, but it should not be impossible for throttling to appear in males as well. If the giraffe evolution happened to stumble upon a particularly sensitive shortage-sensing circuit breaker in the form of a gender preference flip, then we would see it firing non stop in a time of dramatically shrinking giraffe habitat. It's been a while since giraffes could be observed outside of crisis.
(or they just like it, it does not have to be an evolutionary trick)
There are a bunch of plausible theories that ethologists have come up with for evolution of homosexuality. This is one of them - and it does show up in other experiments, e.g. with rats: if you make their population denser, a higher proportion exhibits same-sex behavior.
But it's not the only one. Another is that species that employ K strategy (low reproduction rates, high investment into offspring to ensure its survival) and that are social, gradually develop some kind of social safety net mechanisms for offspring, in cases where e.g. the parent dies or is sick and unable to provide proper care. One way to do that is to have some proportion of the population that does not breed on their own, thus ensuring that they are always available to rear others' offspring. Since evolution generally takes the path of least resistance, it's easier to achieve this by redirecting sexual drive than by switching it off entirely. And this can even make sense from a "selfish gene" perspective of one individual, because if you help enough of your close relatives (who share many genes with you) keep their kids alive, it may actually be more effective than betting on a few children of your own surviving to carry more shared genes.
(If this theory is right, that has interesting implications for all those laws restricting adoption by same-sex parents...)
The K strategy theory looks reasonable, but I don't see how evolution could develop a population-control mechanism like the parent comment postulated. If you start with an overly-dense population that's half straight and half gay, the straight ones are still at an evolutionary advantage relative to the gay ones. It doesn't matter that they'll all die when they reach the reproduction rates of a 100% straight population, that's still where the evolutionary forces will take them.
In case of population density, it might be epigenetic.
But also, don't forget that evolution does not "care" about organisms, only about genes; and a gene can be carried across generations without manifesting itself. Suppose it is beneficial to carry the "gay gene", because it means that more of your descendants don't die, even if some of them won't procreate - producing a net gain in the propagation of your genes on the whole, ironically. That would trigger selection, once such a gene appears.
>Suppose it is beneficial to carry the "gay gene", because it means that more of your descendants don't die, even if some of them won't procreate
That doesn't work because even though less of your gay descendants will starve, the straight organisms in the population will also reap the benefits and they'll still be at an evolutionary advantage.
I didn't mean to imply that all descendants would be gay, only that all would carry the gene and pass it to their descendants in turn. Most would still breed.
And in your original example, the straight organisms still die in the end. So over the lifetime of multiple colonies, the ones that survive would carry more "cooperative" genes, no? I mean, isn't this basically how biological altruism develops in general?
>I didn't mean to imply that all descendants would be gay, only that all would carry the gene and pass it to their descendants in turn. Most would still breed.
It doesn't matter. It's a gene that, in the long term, slightly increases the chance of every other individual reproducing while immediately greatly decreasing its own chance. That just doesn't work.
>over the lifetime of multiple colonies, the ones that survive would carry more "cooperative" genes
Evolution already works extremely slowly when its forces are applied to individual organisms. Any theory that requires evolution to act on entire populations is extremely unlikely. Also, you'd need a way for the gay gene to spread among a colony population in the first place in order for that colony to be selected in the way you postulate.
Another problem is that if ever a cooperative (in this particular sense of abstaining from reproduction) population meets an uncooperative one, eventually the uncooperative genes are going to take over again. It would need to speciate before that happens.
>I mean, isn't this basically how biological altruism develops in general?
I'm not really familiar with the concept, but it's easy to predict some things: Biological altruism will generally mean an organism helping another at a small or no cost and/or the benefited organism is a close relative that likely shares the gene. The gay gene fits neither criteria. The examples on Wikipedia do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_%28biology%29#Example...
Lastly, nature has other ways to solve overpopulation. Organisms can evolve to require less food, change their diets to something else, become aggressive towards other individuals of the same species (killing the competition), or best of all: combining those last two things by resorting to cannibalism (this was the actual result of an experiment that applied evolutionary pressure over populations of insects).
> It's a gene that, in the long term, slightly increases the chance of every other individual reproducing while immediately greatly decreasing its own chance. That just doesn't work.
Don't forget that all those other individuals in vicinity carry some of the same genes - the closer, the more genetically related they are, in general. You'd need to compute how much that small but broad effect can add up to the total percentage of genes propagated indirectly.
I get that it doesn't sound very "common sense", but I don't think it can be rejected outright without doing the numbers and modeling first. Which is exactly what people in the field do, and if they say that it's plausible (i.e. that they can come up with models that are consistent with observations, and that demonstrate stable propagation), then it can't be dismissed out of hand. Look up "group selection" for the kind of models that they use.
Also, that Wikipedia article gives some far more extreme examples of biological altruism, like self-sacrificing ants - noting that this is still evolutionary viable because of how much shared genetic material is there in the rest of the colony (indeed, one could say that the very social structure of ant colonies with non-reproducing workers is an extreme example of biological altruism taken to 11 by evolution). And then we have our own social mores, which have included literal self-sacrifice for the sake of one's "tribe" as a virtue for pretty much as long as we can trace human culture back - and it's not on its way out, either. Clearly, we aren't ants, but in this case, is it really a qualitative difference, or simply the result of the same process applied to different starting conditions and different evolutionary pressures, producing different points on the same scale?
Side note: when I was digging into modern evolutionary theory, one surprising (to me) thing that came up is that there have been substantial revisions in the estimated speed of evolution as a process since Darwin's days. Sexual selection in particular is a mechanism that turned out to work much faster than originally anticipated, and can in fact push other traits that wouldn't be viable otherwise over the viability threshold. One theory is that it developed in the first place because faster selection - i.e. adaptability - is itself a selected-for trait, so it's kinda getting very meta. And there's a fringe but intriguing argument that our human culture (and its building blocks, like language) is, essentially, a further development along these lines to reduce the lag even further - memes can change faster than genes, so population groups that rely less on genetically hardcoded behavior and more on transmitted social mores, are more adaptable. But of course the genes are still there, so those transmitted behaviors that can be implemented on top of hardwired stuff are going to be stronger, even if the original effect was very subtle - e.g. modern concepts of fairness and justice (presumably evolved from hardwired behaviors like parochial altruism).
In the case of ants, the beneficiary of the altruism/self-sacrifice is the queen, which always carries the gene. That's why I said:
>Biological altruism will generally mean an organism helping another at a small or no cost and/or the benefited organism is a close relative that likely shares the gene.
Ants and bees are extreme examples of the later.
In your theory, the only beneficiaries of fewer individuals reproducing are the straight (and bi) individuals who are still reproducing. It's a really bad theory to explain homosexuality and I don't know why anyone would insist on it when it's so easy to come up with better ones. Just think of something that would benefit the individuals carrying the genes themselves. Maybe an attraction to muscles (or some other manly characteristic in that species) that leads to stronger offspring when the individual mates with muscular females, but can go too far sometimes leading to homosexuality.
>one surprising (to me) thing that came up is that there have been substantial revisions in the estimated speed of evolution as a process since Darwin's days. Sexual selection in particular is a mechanism that turned out to work much faster than originally anticipated, and can in fact push other traits that wouldn't be viable otherwise over the viability threshold. One theory is that it developed in the first place because faster selection - i.e. adaptability - is itself a selected-for trait, so it's kinda getting very meta.
That's actually really interesting! Got any good links on that? The speed of evolution is something that sometimes bothers me when looking at highly complex adaptations.
Most of my reading about this was in Russian, and I don't remember the exact sources that were cited there. This particular stuff was mentioned kinda in passing in a broader conversation on evolution of human behavior, as an explanation of how it could get so complicated so fast. But searching around, it looks like there are some very specific papers on it - e.g. this looks interesting:
"This paper presents theoretical arguments and simulation results in support of our view that sexual selection creates new fi tness peaks (and thus new niches), helps species escape from
old local optima to find new, better peaks, and promotes speciation to increase the number of lineages searching for peaks."
Is it ok to assume this about a homosexual person? I think not.
So this article does nothing but prove bi-sexuality might exist in the animal kingdom. You'd have to prove the giraffes know the difference between male giraffes and female giraffes.
When animals have sex with dead animals are the necrophilic or confused?
I'm so glad such interesting content is hitting the front page of HN. This was right underneath "Computer Scientists Create Reprogrammable Molecular Computing System". Who wants to read about reprogrammable molecular computing systems, when I can read about gay giraffes. Top quality stuff, guys. Carry on.
I saw a dog on heat being followed around by a cluster of dogs. One of them tried to hump her head.
Animals have no idea what they're doing. Calling them 'homosexual' is highly presumptuous. A lot of dogs, for instance, will hump a leg. Is that 'natural'? Nope? Genes for it? Nope? Hormones and lack of opportunity? Yup.
Even teens get crushes on other teens of the same sex, but grow up and they are totally heterosexual and couldn't imagine doing anything with the same sex. It's just mixed up feelings and hormones and confusion.
That's not to say I believe human behaviour should somehow be judged by finding equivalents in the animal kingdom (what a silly concept!), it's just fun to point out to someone that even their ridiculous point is technically incorrect.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20140723175514/http://www.blaghag...
What's ridiculous is looking to the animal kingdom to judicate what's normal for human homosexuality in either direction. Lots of mammals eat their young, I wouldn't use this as evidence to normalize infant cannibalism.
If in ten years, this research into animal sexuality was show to be falsified, misinterpreted, or just not representative of a wide range of nature, would you then decide human homosexuality is morally wrong?
That's the real risk of taking something which should be more of a moral axiom and claiming it derives from science and nature; you risk having it overturned in the future.
It doesn't mean that you can't make statements that are always true (today, tomorrow, in a hundred years, etc).
Once something is discovered and we understand the limits of the model, it is true forever e.g., Newton's laws under appropriate assumptions (not too fast, not much mass).
That's not a flack. It's inherent to the nature of the social sciences. Since every individual is part of a complex social system, it's incredibly hard to make repeatable experiments to test assumptions in the same way that physicists do every day for breakfast.
Both astrology and astronomy can study the same stars -- the difference is in methods they use (and only one is science).
I liken it to saying that someone shouldn't be judged by having a face tattoo, because it is a personal choice that affects no one negatively. In practice however people with face tattoos are judged pretty harshly, and in a way that people with alopecia or facial birth marks are not, specifically because choices carry moral weight.
Another issue is that the choice argument comes with a lot of baggage for people who take it to mean that I am somehow intentionally upending what would otherwise be a lovely, traditional family with 2.3 kids and a dog because I chose to fraternize with men instead, but that since it is a choice it is also one I could undo at any time (see gay conversion therapy).
After gathering additional evidence that other animals "natuarlly" have same sex relations, that should shift the needle for me some amount in one direction, seeing as how I do not believe humans to be "more" but just differently evolved, and having evolved on the same planet in a complex web of species divergence with these other animals.
But it's also clear that there is not genetic influence in the ordinary sense that most people will imagine if you say a trait is genetic. Compare the question "is this person gay?" to "does this person speak French?" --
Can we predict whether a person speaks French just by looking at their DNA? Yes.
How good will the prediction be? Decent. French is mostly spoken by people in countries where French is the language of daily life. There is noise from a few sources: some people are naturally attracted to learning languages; some countries are more recent than others and the genetics of their residents are less informative; some countries have an imperfect layer of French on top of some other language(s). (You can easily identify a Frenchman by looking at his genes. It's harder to identify a French-speaking Canadian in Quebec that way. And it's much harder to identify a Vietnamese collaborator family that way.)
There is a genetic influence (in the intuitive sense) on whether you speak French. I mentioned it above -- some people are inclined towards learning languages. Within any given non-Francophone population, those people are more likely to speak French than everyone else is. But the very weak genetic signal amounts to nearly nothing because it is overwhelmed by very powerful environmental influence. If your parents speak only French, and everyone you ever meet speaks French, you will speak French too. And if none of the above is true, you're unlikely to speak French even if you might like to do so in the abstract.
So the fact that you can predict French-speaking from a person's genetics is mostly spurious -- it comes from the fact that genetics and French-speaking coincide without much direct influence of one on the other. The concordance of French-speaking in identical twins is much higher than 30% -- it is nearly 100%, despite the fact that the trait is not much influenced by genetics, because identical twins almost always grow up in the same country. And this is for an entirely non-genetic trait! Where a trait is genetically determined, you would see similar concordance levels -- since identical twins have the same genetics, their concordance on genetically-determined traits must be close to 100%. Studies of identical twins raised apart always find that a twin pair coincides on a creepily large number of apparently inconsequential behaviors, like habitually wearing seven rings. They should coincide more on very consequential behaviors such as refusal to breed.
30% concordance is so low as to preclude the idea that genetics is causing the one twin to be homosexual. It suggests instead that genetics is giving both twins a weakness, but a minor enough weakness that even when one twin succumbs the other twin usually stays healthy. There are two models that could match this:
- Homosexuality might strike at random, like radioactive decay. Genetics set the odds of it happening to you, and every day God rolls the dice to see whether you suddenly become gay.
- Homosexuality might be transmissible ("something you can catch"). Genetics set the odds of your successfully resisting infection.
The first option could reasonably be described as "innate". It cannot, however, be described as "born that way", which as I understand it is the argument that people are making when they say that homosexuality is innate. 30% concordance in identical twins conclusively demonstrates that homosexuals are not born that way. An adult's homosexuality is not specified by their genes -- it is a failure state to which their genes left them more or less vulnerable, and which needs some kind of trigger (possibly chance).
Summing up:
We were given three options: that homosexuality is "a choice", "innate", or "something you can catch".
As you note, "innate" is not particularly well defined. Neither is "a choice". But we can still reject the "choice" option pretty easily. From a common sense perspective, it is clear that people don't choose their wants. And the MZ twin concordance rate is too low -- where identical twins get to make choices, they generally make the same choices.
While "innate" can mean several things, it is very often used to mean an "intentional" effect of the genes, a body that faithfully executes its genetic plan (regardless of whether that plan is good or bad). (This isn't well-defined either, sadly.) The MZ twin concordance rate is much too low to support this for homosexuality. It is also used to mean an effect which will manifest regardless of circumstance. This is easy to reject, as there are no such phenomena. But with a more liberal interpretation of "regardless of circumstance", we can rule this out too.
I don't think anything discussed here is evidence for or against the idea that homosexuality is "something you can catch".
I will also note that this trichotomy fails to include some obvious types of causes. If, say, a rock falls on your arm and you lose the arm, I think that's better characterized as an "environmental shock" than as a disease, a genetic effect, an "innate" effect, or a choice, even though there is genetic and "choice" influence on the event. I tend to agree that 30% MZ twin concordance is too high for the environmental shock model to make sense in the US context.
But as I said above, the evidence in favor of "innate" as an explanation is not very good.
So using that same argument, murder is “natural”, too.
By including homosexuality into a species, you have members who are able to gather and process energy without contributing to population growth. Population growth is a good thing, but too much is detrimental to the species (at least if you don't have access to agriculture). In addition, if the species is a social species, you can have richer communities without the burden of additional offspring, including non-binary genders (as primitive gender roles need not apply to homosexual members). This is especially true for humans, as our offspring is unusually vulnerable for an unusually extended time. Include adoption into the equation, and your species would have a bank of potential parents for abandoned (due to death or otherwise) offspring: in humans, bearing offspring is risky and consumes a lot of energy. Evolutionary speaking, it's not a good thing if all the energy expended in that newborn is left to waste.
The possibility of homosexuality is mathematically optimal and it is therefore a deeply natural phenomenon. You don't even need to look at the animal kingdom, it's right there in nature (assuming I'm correct, but I think my argument is compelling).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy
I've absolutely heard "homosexuality is immoral", but the two things are not really related.
Maybe people don't like to be watched, but I think there is a string driver to also reproduce and for men to put one's semen, ideally replacing the other man's.
Where have you been the last 50+ years? Porn has been and continues to be under constant attack by society. In the United States, even the First Amendment hasn't been as solid a defense as its wording would make it seem for pornographic works, and some states still have laws on the books banning "obscene devices" (though admittedly sex toys aren't speech)
People don't like others having sex, don't like knowing about it (unless they themselves are horny and want to see it, but heaven forbid anyone else be allowed the same privilege, which is the main reason you see so many anti-gay male politicians being caught in compromising positions with other men), and want to control everything about it.
There are two evolutionary reasons for this.
The first is pregnancy; and the difference between societies that have evolved without access to effective natural birth control and ones that have is as stark as you'd expect it to be.
The second is scarcity, which is related to the first thing (i.e. people weigh sex against major negative consequences if having sex can have major consequences), but can be slightly abated by a massive distribution network of pictures and videos of sex (while not the same thing, unlike physical hunger sexual appetite can be satisfied by the equivalent of simply looking at a picture of a tasty meal for a few minutes).
Modern society has only had 50 years with technology that does those two things reliably. Society at large just hasn't had enough time with these factors in play to loosen up, but the cracks are beginning to show.
Humans have developed elaborate bullshit to achieve basically that. Monogamy, possession, shame.
Throughout our history, it's also mostly practiced out of necessity/pressure by the underclasses/commoners* of human society, not the rulers/leaders/wealthy.
* (not counting prostitution)
"Acting selfishly" is also a common victim-blame.
Not sharing your lunch money with povert bullies, or loving someone you love instead of whomever other people want you to love.
I’m ashamed.
So there is this.
And there is some more: as a dominant bdsm heterosexual person for some reason I don't feel an urge to present my sexual preference to the whole world all the time and demanding the public to accept it. Or even having it recognized as part of my "identity". Sex is sex, happens in bed with my wife and is between us. Why in the world I would have a need to demand my friends, family, co-workers to have them accept the reality that I like to see blood on my wife's butt before I slide between them --- this is silly. Isn't that this piece where homosexuals are just so oblivious that they simply don't recognize that the whole world doesn't neccessarily care about them putting the thing in another guys anus? Why do we need to have parades about that? Why do we need special laws for the condition? Am I going to get treated differently during employment process next time because I'm into bdsm? I mean that are idiots who say yes, bdsm is just another sexual preference. So I would be sexual minority. And would be need it so much more at places like Google or Apple to fullfil some idiotic quota. Good job America you guys are beyond hilarious! Anthropologist in the future will have bunch of a good time looking at you! And please don't downvote that would be pure nazism. I mean where are we going with this?
I accept this element of culture unconditionally and don't feel any interest in violating it so I am not going to expose children (mine or other) to sexual scenes ever.
However, although there may happen to be some (so why risk), I really fail to see reason behind it. Why is it considered bad for children to see people having sex? Especially when it's about non-violent "classic" sex between "normal" people loving each other and treating each other tenderly and not any kind of hardcore BDSM porn. I understand some particular kinds of sexual practices can seem weird and even shock some people yet what makes "vanilla" sex obscene and potentially harmful for a person (a kid or whoever) psyche is beyond my comprehension.
> I don't feel an urge to present my sexual preference to the whole world all the time and demanding the public to accept it. Or even having it recognized as part of my "identity". Sex is sex, happens in bed with my wife and is between us.
I support this point, yet...
... I was going to copy-paste-quote the next part but the message got flagged. The next was the question why seek others to be aware of your sexual preferences and accept them. I believe the answer is so they won't get "shocked" once they find out accidentally and nobody will be able to blackmail you. The the current state of culture makes it matter. Once everybody accepts everything is normal exposing your sexual preferences proactively will become irrelevant.
You can see flagged/killed comments by enabling "showdead" in your profile settings.
Come on, we all know there are right minorities and there are wrong minorities.
But jokes aside, one possible explanation is that despite of all your sexual life, for the outside observer you still look like a "vanilla" couple (sorry, I assumed your gender here). You can show up at your kids school together, you can go to the Christmas party with your colleagues and none will say a word.
I think for gay couples it may be different: from weird looks to outright refusal.
And as for downvotes... Don't let me even start...
Entire societies and cultures have been built around the idea that sex is unnatural and requires special rituals and public approval to be had, and even then you're not supposed to actually enjoy it.
Perhaps this distinction does not seem like it matters but I predict in the future this distinction will be extremely common (in humans at least).
It’s very common in sexual health because “men who have sex with other men” is much more useful when reasoning about disease spread than peoples wide gamut of self-reported sexual orientations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_who_have_sex_with_men
There are definitely gay people who get married and have kids though. An alien who doesn't understand humans might classify them as heterosexual.
What purpose does this distinction serve?
Consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_who_have_sex_with_men
I'm personally in the camp that if you have sex with genders outside the opposite of your own, then you're either gay or bisexual. I don't differentiate between whether you're attracted to the same sex or just seriously, uncontrollably horny and desperate to shag anything with an orifice.
I guess I still don't see the relevance of a distinction beyond that of psycho-semantics.
Sexually attractive? Well yes, if you're humping it you find it sexually attractive.
Psychologically attractive? Only if you have some kind of complex against being labeled 'homosexual' or 'bisexual' while still engaging in coutius with other people of the same sex.
Emotionally/Intellectually attractive? Well, personally I don't find myself sexually attracted to people (and in effect, things) whom I can't satisfactorily engage with on an intellectual and emotional level. I know some people are different and will fuck anything that moves. I've had people tell me so themselves. But I don't think the "Men Who Have Sex With Men" label discusses intellectual stimulation as a stipulation.
Who am I to say why an animal who's mind I have no insight into is having sex? I wouldn't even dare to begin supposing pretending I have any idea of what's going on in an octopus' mind(s).
(Although I did once read a fascinating fiction on some blog about exactly that. Can't find it now)
Although animals have been observed to have same-sex coupling, they mix it up with males and females. In the animal kingdom the only species that have been observed to have exclusively homosexual sex are humans and domesticated sheep. One would think that a sexual organism never having heterosexual sex would be a huge evolutionary fitness disadvantage, and such a trait would be extremely uncommon. There are some caveats, for example: Sharks are able to reproduce asexually, and frogs can “switch” genders AFTER reproduction, during adverse conditions. But lifelong homosexuality has not been observed in species other than humans and domesticated sheep, which suggests that relaxed evolutionary pressures may be a necessary component.
From Wikipedia
Simon LeVay introduced caveat that "[a]lthough homosexual behavior is very common in the animal world, it seems to be very uncommon that individual animals have a long-lasting predisposition to engage in such behavior to the exclusion of heterosexual activities. Thus, a homosexual orientation, if one can speak of such thing in animals, seems to be a rarity."[8] One species in which exclusive homosexual orientation occurs, however, is that of domesticated sheep (Ovis aries).[9][10] "About 10% of rams (males), refuse to mate with ewes (females) but do readily mate with other rams."[10]
Genes do not "care" for individual organisms. If they did we would be immortal. Jared Diamond argued that the presence of homosexual uncles/aunts is the same kind of an advantage as the presence of no-longer-breeding grandparents.
> such a trait would be extremely uncommon.
Homosexuality is pretty rare, isn't it?
Also, if homosexuality is a strategy for childcare, why do homosexual relatives contribute so little to their nieces and nephews? And if it is a successful strategy, why does it occur at such a low prevalence?
The theories about alpha and beta wolves turned out to be wrong btw. The wolves that were observed in captivity were simply closely related families.
https://amp.businessinsider.com/no-such-thing-alpha-male-201...
I’m sure animals do it based on behavior as well. If a peer is acting sick (even if not), I’m sure their behavior changes.
Sorry about the blogspam link. I have seen more reputable articles about chimpanzees with alopecia, but my search skills are failing me now. The gist always seems to be that hairless chimpanzees (there have been several in zoos) aren't treated differently by others.
It relies on the naturalistic fallacy which I don't like, but it also shuts down people who make the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore bad, which I do like.
Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
This is so important and so regularly gets ignored by people on all sides. Once, a long time ago, I was talking to a much-smarter-than-me gay friend about the gay marriage debate in the US, and I said that being gay wasn't a choice and that _therefore_ yada yada. He said the only thing that in hindsight ever really matters, though at the time I'd never heard anyone say it before. He said "So what if it were a choice? What exactly does that change? You can't choose who to spend your life with? You can't choose who to share resources with? You can't choose who gets to be your proxy? Why is choice not important?"
The motivation is mostly religious.
Homosexuality must be a choice, otherwise God created homosexuals as they are, and homosexuality is just another part of Nature.
But if that's true, homosexuality can't be a sin, because sin is always a choice.
But homosexuality is a sin because the Bible says it is (even though it doesn't really,) therefore it must be a choice.
P: Sex outside of marriage is a sin.
Q: Marriage is between a man and a woman.
Therefore [P and Q] implies that homosexual activity is wrong but the mere act of being attracted to the same sex is not inherently sinful.
As for why that should influence our votes for public policy, the reasoning goes that sin always brings trouble, death, and non-well-being to society, therefore influencing public policy away from sinful societal patterns and acts is one important way to love one’s neighbors, since it will result in greater well-being for them.
Also, why do you feel the Christian sacred texts doesn't really condemn homosexuality? I feel you have to do a lot of extra-textual analysis and theory-crafting to reach that perspective, so it's no surprise that Christians in general don't buy that idea.
And... it also condemns masturbation, marrying foreigners, eating fish, letting menstruating women inside the city limits and mixing fabrics.
Someone living in Biblical times probably wouldn't have any concept of someone being "straight" or "gay," just of someone following cultural norms or violating cultural taboos. So to say the Bible condemns homosexuality is a misappropriation of the intent of the text outside of the cultural and temporal context to which it was intended to apply.
This comment you're reading has a dead sibling that pointed out the commonly-held Christian doctrine that some of the Bible's laws don't apply to modern Christians.
The commenter is absolutely correct, and here is a link from a famous and well-regarded theologian on the subject (R.C Sproul).
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/which-laws-apply/
In summary, there are civil, ceremonial, and moral laws in the Old Testament. For example, "no murder" is a moral law, while dietary restrictions are a ceremonial law.
I'm not commenting on the validity or "correctness" of this doctrine, as I am not a theologian. I just think it's worth confirming that this is something a lot of Christians believe.
In general, NT has plenty of stuff that can be appropriated for fire-and-brimstone preaching. Most of it is Paul's, which is why some consider Pauline Christianity to be a mutilation of what was preached before.
[0] never met Christ, so he had to pretend he had some sort of vision to get in the club... Jesus treated the money changers better than He would have treated Paul.
There is a very convenient Christian doctrine where there are "three types of law in the Bible", which explains that some rules are meant for Israelites and some are meant for everyone (and you [or the church] basically get to guess which apply to you).
So ironically if homosexuality IS a sin; then these are the people Jesus came for, spent time with, and calls
Tax collectors in this context refers to Jews who consorted with Romans to effectively extort from their own countrymen
> When you say "homosexuality" do you mean homosexual proclivities, or homosexual acts? It's an important nuance. For example, Judiasm/Christianity/Islam teaches...
Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”
He says it is bad to desire something bad. This isn't playng with nuance. Slightly later he says: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” A tough call, but then the writer of half the NT was a hater and murderer of Chrstians -- Acts 9 describes how he met Jesus and was accepted/forgiven
> And... it also condemns masturbation, marrying foreigners, eating fish, letting menstruating women inside the city limits and mixing fabrics.
* Masturbation: I'm not sure where this could be from * Fish: "Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat." (Leviticus 11)
Etc. But actually we are both being anti-biblical here. Sure, there are detailed and unusual laws, but God frequently and directly asks people to focus on other things:
“But give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.”
Or Jesus: “Woe to you [religious teachers]. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law--justice, mercy, and faithfulness.”
And many more... To be wrapped up in the law of what is right or wrong --even homosexuality-- is to 100% miss what the Bible teaches
“If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” (Galatians 2)
It always read to me that it was more about turning men into women than it was about actually performing homosexual acts.
When you say "homosexuality" do you mean homosexual proclivities, or homosexual acts? It's an important nuance.
Judiasm/Christianity/Islam teaches that humans have a proclivity to sin (fallen nature), but God commands them to not sin, i.e. to act ccontrary to their nature.
There is no theological contradiction (or least, not anymore than normal) between natural homosexuals and God forbidding homosexual acts.
EDIT: The actual consequence of natural homosexuality is a difference of understanding. Birth condition vs self-inflicted. "Crack baby" vs "crack head".
Not if you believe in total depravity combined with unconditional election. Which just happens to be the cornerstone dogmas of one very popular Christian denomination.
I understand what you mean, but it doesn't seem to be the case. In regards to sexual preferences, for example, there are some that are, arguably, not a choice either, and still are considered absolutely forbidden.
> For example you and I are against Down's syndrome, but we can't make any progress by telling people to stop having it.
Nope, that would be ridiculous. But at the same time having Down's syndrome is not devoid of legal consequences. You'll probably be denied a driving license or the possibility to own guns, and you can argue as much as you want that your condition is perfectly natural and you didn't have a choice, it won't make any difference.
There doesn't seem to be much evidence that sexuality can be changed by conscious choice. So if your sexuality runs along those lines you're going to have a bad time, because you'll either have to repress your urges, or risk actions that damage others, possibly with criminal consequences.
The edge cases of this can become ridiculous - but still tragic. E.g. there are people who are primarily turned on by paving stones and/or drain covers.
It's not really obvious what "natural" means in this context. Is this imprinting? Genetics? Something else? There aren't any good answers. Criminal law does the best it can with them, but it's not clear that choice really applies, and criminal punishment is pointless and ineffective anyway - either as a deterrent or as rehabilitation.
The bigger moral question is maybe why some social groups seem obsessed with what they consider sexual deviance - including their beliefs about homosexuality - while apparently ignoring other moral and social questions.
What is the psychological process that turns homosexuality into a uniquely disturbing moral problem for them, while other hot-button issues - poverty, diet, government and corporate corruption, take your pick from a long list - are relatively uninteresting for them?
https://youtu.be/PqTYSy_vuRQ
He argues for gay marriage and the right to an abortion substantially on the basis of limited government. The existing regulations are often substantially motivated by religion, which is contrary to the establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...") -- and outside of these motivations the government has not proffered any credible reasons for regulation.
In short, there is no reason for the gay community to prove anything; the government has no reason for its regulations, or at best reasons proffered in bad faith.
With regards to Professor Bedi's over-arching philosophy, of focusing on reasons, I do have some reservations. In particular, I wonder how he proposes to limit government with only this focus. Just the same, in this case he argues clearly and well, that putting the onus on gay people to prove they deserve the right to marry is a strange place to start from, if we are starting from within a framework of limited government.
Your friend should not repeat that argument in a debate again.
No they don't, and no it doesn't. Bisexuals aren't people who "choose" to be gay one minute and "choose" to be straight the next. Rather, they are attracted to both genders, just as homosexuals are attracted to the same gender, and heterosexuals are attracted to the opposite gender.
The argument is more like "eating dirt is okay for earthworms, but it's unnatural for humans", so appeal to the behavior of other animals completely misses the point.
This is a profoundly metaphysical debate about the nature of a life well-lived and the nature of a healthy society. Whatever one thinks of it, that's the level on which it ought to be discussed.
"Natural" is used to mean "in the ontology of Man".
Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle. As 'presscast notes it completely misses the point of the nature of a life well-lived.
Ironically, in practice it goes against human nature. Atomized society of people passing each other indifferently is certainly freer in some sense but it's also lonely and depressing for many of its members. It goes directly against our most basic needs for social belonging.
So true -- but here we are talking about it as a legal principle. It's about what the government can't do, not about what people should do.
>Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle.
that is a circular argument as morals are the behaviors that society allows consenting adults to engage in.
Wrt. [un]naturality based arguments - there is nothing natural about humans using smartphones, flying in airplanes, etc. yet billions of people shamelessly engage in those unnatural activities everyday. We're way past natural... Why are we so hellbent about whether it is natural or unnatural of how some people enjoy each other company?
Being born with it, rather than a choice -- meant that unfair treatment of homosexuals was morally equivalent to race/ethnic origin based prosecutions.
Therefore, civil rights accomplishments, and modern legal framework resulting from those -- would apply to homosexuals.
If 'being born with' would not have been recognized as scientific truth, then homosexual marriages would likely be treated the same as consenting adult polygamists.
I think this is one of reasons why non-binary people having hard time being recognized in same policy/morality structures as homosexual people.
> Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
But then again I have seen the terrible devastation that was brought upon some less fortunate friends when they realised they were gay: teenagers driven into isolation (and, once, suicide) by their former "friends"; beloved members of their respective communities and/or families having to start from scratch, just because those communities happened to be "conservative".
I'm having a hard time believing anybody would choose such suffering with anything approaching a sensible definition of the term "free choice".
It's also important to remember that "born that way" is mostly just the headline of a more complex story of how sexuality is understood, one that even progressive activists wouldn't oppose. This sees homo/hetero-sexuality not as a binary choice, but as a spectrum. There's a set point you're born with. Then there's an overlay of culture–just think how much more acceptable it is for women to kiss than it is for men. Finally, there is some wiggle room any individual may experience over the span of their lives, or even just the span of a day given the right intoxicating substances.
This doesn't contradict the idea of inborn sexual orientation, because (see above) cultural and experiential factors are almost definitely not able to overcome biology for many. But it may help to overcome any cognitive dissonance you feel.
When does "by default" become "actually, no, that's bad and even consenting adults shouldn't do that"? If you want to take a strong position that there should be no such thing as a victimless crime, then that's coherent and valid - but if you want to hedge with "by default", I think you have to provide a stronger framework why this thing is okay and that thing isn't. You still have to say something pragmatic like "homosexuality has no documented negative social effects".
(Although personally, I do think that the very idea of a victimless crime is suspect - while some behaviors between consenting adults do have unambiguously negative consequences, criminalizing actions for their invisible second-order effects seems to often cause other, nastier second-order effects. But it's certainly up for debate - applying this rigorously would mean e.g. legalizing all drugs, which is a difficult sell.)
I don't think this is abstract ethical argument, but practical argument about policy. So we don't have to provide any stronger framework. Whoever wishes to argue that something is not OK has to provide detailed arguments backed by evidence about harm that is being produced and demonstrate that someone non-consenting is actually suffering from that harm (even if the effects are second-order). And the burden of proof needs to be significant.
Starting from "allowed by default" would already be a big improvement.
> applying this rigorously would mean e.g. legalizing all drugs, which is a difficult sell
Homosexuality was also a difficult sell. That doesn't mean anything.
Yes, this is what limited government is about. It makes policy makers accountable to the people, not the other way around.
Because the government can not really implement a ban per se, but rather a particular policy that hopefully eliminates the harm, policy makers actually have to make a case for something and not just against something. Otherwise, it's just the government proclaiming that the world would be better off without something. In which case, let us start with war, margarine and bad coffee.
Right in another thread is an article about a pacemaker. Almost nothing in a car, let alone in any electronic device, is untouched by human invention and chemical/physical transformation. Tradition — what "natural" ultimately amounts to — is prologue, not fate.
I always thought that the argument was just for the sake of proving that this natural/unnatural thing is worthless. Homosexuality is natural and nonetheless someone opposes it on the grounds that it's not. Illnesses are natural but nobody is opposed to curing people.
Anyway, it's the old observation that conservatives tend to confuse the is with the ought to be- in other words, to argue that because something is natural or common then it is morally justified and should be enforced.
I've noticed what could be an exactly opposite tendency in liberals though, and I think it's interesting: confusing the ought to be with the is. It's not used as an argument, but it seems to inform some reasoning. For example:
(these are just some examples and I'm thinking out loud, so please don't crucify me)
- there shouldn't be any racial or sexual discriminations -> there are no differences whatsoever between ethnic groups and genders;
- gay couples should be allowed to raise children -> there is absolutely no difference between a heterosexual family and a homosexual family;
- there shouldn't be rich and poors -> money can be removed from society and everybody will be equal;
Etc.
Take racial differences. If any politically problematic difference between races were to be found, then a liberal will be very inclined to suppress this. Why? Because if the conservatives ever got ahold of it, they'd go "aha! racism is justified!" and there wouldn't ever be an end to it - arguing that racism is immoral is a lot harder, pragmatically, than arguing that it's simply mistaken.
I wonder if there's feedback the other way, as well. I can't immediately see the mechanism but I suspect there is one. Perhaps seeing liberalism associated with a deranged sense of reality causes people to reject it wholesale...
Why? Indeed "unnatural=bad" is pointless, there are just so many "unnatural" things people do that are considered ok (btw the mere fact they do already suggests it's not unnatural, umans are a part of nature to and they are doing something without being forced). Even simple medication or agriculture or exercising can be considered "unnatural". Besides that why can homosexuality be considered bad? I'm straight but take it as a matter of taste, males just don't feel attractive to me. I can see no reason I could take seriously. If a significant percent of homosexual acts between healthy partners would result in serious diseases or trauma I would consider this as a clue but I haven't ever read about any evidence suggesting this.
Well, showing that something exists in nature is much more factual and objective than debates will ever be over what people should and shouldn't do
"Should" is inherently subjective. There is not, in either principle it practice, any evidence that can answer a "should" question without reference to an established "should" presupposition. Get used to it.
The "naturalistic fallacy" is therefore a fallacy because it proofs too much: "nature" doesn't want us to go to the moon; it doesn't want us to vaccinate; it sees absolutely no point in rewriting a browser in Rust.
Wild humans were probably social. For comparison, Chimpanzee and Bonobos are social, they live in small groups. The next human relative is Gorilla, that are social too. Orangutans too. I don't know how far we must go to find a solitary relative of humans.
(Note that all of them have very different sexual behavior.)
> [nature] doesn't want us to vaccinate
I don't know a natural example in other animal, but I'd not be surprised if there are any. There were some trick to get a natural vaccination before there were good vaccines. Just wait until there is a year with a mild version, and try to get your kids infected, so the year with a strong version they will be already immunized. (Like a "chickenpox party" that is a very stupid idea now that there are good vaccines.) For example see the early methods to get smallpox immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation
Like the guy who agreed to be murdered and eaten in Germany?
For example, consider how would we know if someone consented to being killed? And how could a consent structure for it be abused? This is where we see it bump against another important principle, that we may not deprive another person of their life without due process of law.
"Between consenting adults" is a necessary but unsufficient condition.
I think most are on board with that - they just can't agree on when that default should be overridden (either by making certain activity legal or more commonly by simply subjecting it to social disapproval). Such areas of contention include way more than homosexuality, e.g. prostitution, quid pro quo sexual harassment, incest, large age / maturity gaps in relationships, mental disability, bdsm, threesomes, masturbation, and porn use.
It doesn't make one bit of difference whether its "natural" or not. Its like manufacturers putting "natural" on yogurt.
Everything is "natural" or not, because someone decides.
I came across someone that didn't think sodium bicarbonate was natural, when in fact its found dissolved in many mineral springs.
Calcium carbonate? That can't be natural.. Its just chalk.
Magnesium chloride.. Its just a magnesium rich salt evaporated from the dead sea.
Including adopting children? I don't think so. I didn't grow up with a mum and I dearly wish I had.
The only people I know personally who aren't using them end up immediately installing one or asking to have one installed as soon as they find out it's an option. This group typically consists of grandparents and other people who know little to nothing about the internet.
What’s interesting with the giraffes is the really high prevalence (94%), which suggests it’s an adaptation to some form of natural selection. Even the rate of 10% would suggest an adaptive response, but the really high rate emphasizes this.
I don't have anything to back this up scientifically, but ISTM this phenomenon doesn't have to be adaptive in and of itself, since it could be a side effect of something else that is adaptive. (Human example: getting sick from sickle cell is not adaptive, but resistance to malaria is.) TFA describes female giraffes as only occasionally fertile, and somewhat aloof even then. Perhaps it takes a real horn-dog to persist given all the rejection. Well that's nice once every two years, but what is a horn-dog to do the rest of the time? What do human horn-dogs do when placed in environments without women, like prison?
It's interesting that the inherent ungainliness of giraffes allows females to reject coitus as they choose.
Of course this is just an idea, which, even if it describes some of the male giraffes, may not describe all of them. I don't mean to suggest that homosexual giraffe sex is in any respect less important than heterosexual giraffe sex.
(or they just like it, it does not have to be an evolutionary trick)
But it's not the only one. Another is that species that employ K strategy (low reproduction rates, high investment into offspring to ensure its survival) and that are social, gradually develop some kind of social safety net mechanisms for offspring, in cases where e.g. the parent dies or is sick and unable to provide proper care. One way to do that is to have some proportion of the population that does not breed on their own, thus ensuring that they are always available to rear others' offspring. Since evolution generally takes the path of least resistance, it's easier to achieve this by redirecting sexual drive than by switching it off entirely. And this can even make sense from a "selfish gene" perspective of one individual, because if you help enough of your close relatives (who share many genes with you) keep their kids alive, it may actually be more effective than betting on a few children of your own surviving to carry more shared genes.
(If this theory is right, that has interesting implications for all those laws restricting adoption by same-sex parents...)
But also, don't forget that evolution does not "care" about organisms, only about genes; and a gene can be carried across generations without manifesting itself. Suppose it is beneficial to carry the "gay gene", because it means that more of your descendants don't die, even if some of them won't procreate - producing a net gain in the propagation of your genes on the whole, ironically. That would trigger selection, once such a gene appears.
That doesn't work because even though less of your gay descendants will starve, the straight organisms in the population will also reap the benefits and they'll still be at an evolutionary advantage.
And in your original example, the straight organisms still die in the end. So over the lifetime of multiple colonies, the ones that survive would carry more "cooperative" genes, no? I mean, isn't this basically how biological altruism develops in general?
It doesn't matter. It's a gene that, in the long term, slightly increases the chance of every other individual reproducing while immediately greatly decreasing its own chance. That just doesn't work.
>over the lifetime of multiple colonies, the ones that survive would carry more "cooperative" genes
Evolution already works extremely slowly when its forces are applied to individual organisms. Any theory that requires evolution to act on entire populations is extremely unlikely. Also, you'd need a way for the gay gene to spread among a colony population in the first place in order for that colony to be selected in the way you postulate.
Another problem is that if ever a cooperative (in this particular sense of abstaining from reproduction) population meets an uncooperative one, eventually the uncooperative genes are going to take over again. It would need to speciate before that happens.
>I mean, isn't this basically how biological altruism develops in general?
I'm not really familiar with the concept, but it's easy to predict some things: Biological altruism will generally mean an organism helping another at a small or no cost and/or the benefited organism is a close relative that likely shares the gene. The gay gene fits neither criteria. The examples on Wikipedia do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_%28biology%29#Example...
Lastly, nature has other ways to solve overpopulation. Organisms can evolve to require less food, change their diets to something else, become aggressive towards other individuals of the same species (killing the competition), or best of all: combining those last two things by resorting to cannibalism (this was the actual result of an experiment that applied evolutionary pressure over populations of insects).
Don't forget that all those other individuals in vicinity carry some of the same genes - the closer, the more genetically related they are, in general. You'd need to compute how much that small but broad effect can add up to the total percentage of genes propagated indirectly.
I get that it doesn't sound very "common sense", but I don't think it can be rejected outright without doing the numbers and modeling first. Which is exactly what people in the field do, and if they say that it's plausible (i.e. that they can come up with models that are consistent with observations, and that demonstrate stable propagation), then it can't be dismissed out of hand. Look up "group selection" for the kind of models that they use.
Also, that Wikipedia article gives some far more extreme examples of biological altruism, like self-sacrificing ants - noting that this is still evolutionary viable because of how much shared genetic material is there in the rest of the colony (indeed, one could say that the very social structure of ant colonies with non-reproducing workers is an extreme example of biological altruism taken to 11 by evolution). And then we have our own social mores, which have included literal self-sacrifice for the sake of one's "tribe" as a virtue for pretty much as long as we can trace human culture back - and it's not on its way out, either. Clearly, we aren't ants, but in this case, is it really a qualitative difference, or simply the result of the same process applied to different starting conditions and different evolutionary pressures, producing different points on the same scale?
Side note: when I was digging into modern evolutionary theory, one surprising (to me) thing that came up is that there have been substantial revisions in the estimated speed of evolution as a process since Darwin's days. Sexual selection in particular is a mechanism that turned out to work much faster than originally anticipated, and can in fact push other traits that wouldn't be viable otherwise over the viability threshold. One theory is that it developed in the first place because faster selection - i.e. adaptability - is itself a selected-for trait, so it's kinda getting very meta. And there's a fringe but intriguing argument that our human culture (and its building blocks, like language) is, essentially, a further development along these lines to reduce the lag even further - memes can change faster than genes, so population groups that rely less on genetically hardcoded behavior and more on transmitted social mores, are more adaptable. But of course the genes are still there, so those transmitted behaviors that can be implemented on top of hardwired stuff are going to be stronger, even if the original effect was very subtle - e.g. modern concepts of fairness and justice (presumably evolved from hardwired behaviors like parochial altruism).
>Biological altruism will generally mean an organism helping another at a small or no cost and/or the benefited organism is a close relative that likely shares the gene.
Ants and bees are extreme examples of the later.
In your theory, the only beneficiaries of fewer individuals reproducing are the straight (and bi) individuals who are still reproducing. It's a really bad theory to explain homosexuality and I don't know why anyone would insist on it when it's so easy to come up with better ones. Just think of something that would benefit the individuals carrying the genes themselves. Maybe an attraction to muscles (or some other manly characteristic in that species) that leads to stronger offspring when the individual mates with muscular females, but can go too far sometimes leading to homosexuality.
>one surprising (to me) thing that came up is that there have been substantial revisions in the estimated speed of evolution as a process since Darwin's days. Sexual selection in particular is a mechanism that turned out to work much faster than originally anticipated, and can in fact push other traits that wouldn't be viable otherwise over the viability threshold. One theory is that it developed in the first place because faster selection - i.e. adaptability - is itself a selected-for trait, so it's kinda getting very meta.
That's actually really interesting! Got any good links on that? The speed of evolution is something that sometimes bothers me when looking at highly complex adaptations.
http://www.unm.edu/~gfmiller/new_papers2/todd%201997%20biodi...
"This paper presents theoretical arguments and simulation results in support of our view that sexual selection creates new fi tness peaks (and thus new niches), helps species escape from old local optima to find new, better peaks, and promotes speciation to increase the number of lineages searching for peaks."
Is it ok to assume this about a homosexual person? I think not.
So this article does nothing but prove bi-sexuality might exist in the animal kingdom. You'd have to prove the giraffes know the difference between male giraffes and female giraffes.
When animals have sex with dead animals are the necrophilic or confused?
This article isn't based in science.
Animals have no idea what they're doing. Calling them 'homosexual' is highly presumptuous. A lot of dogs, for instance, will hump a leg. Is that 'natural'? Nope? Genes for it? Nope? Hormones and lack of opportunity? Yup.
Even teens get crushes on other teens of the same sex, but grow up and they are totally heterosexual and couldn't imagine doing anything with the same sex. It's just mixed up feelings and hormones and confusion.